Audio Technica ART9 sounds awful

Consistent with comments by some of the others, my ART9 sounded good right out of the box, and never sounded awful/terrible/bad/defective (to use some of the adjectives that have been stated above) at any time during its breakin period.

Also, I had purchased it new, from a dealer, and installed it myself. So it was not subjected to any prior breakin.

Safebelayer, keep in mind that as I alluded to earlier it is conceivable that the cartridge might be miswired internally, such that there is a polarity reversal in one channel.  Especially, as I said, if imaging is vague and diffuse.

Regards,
-- Al

In addition to the tubby bass and the shifted soundstage, is imaging vague and diffuse?  If so, it would be suggestive that + and - may be reversed on one channel, either within the cartridge or in your connections to it. 

A means of checking for that possibility that may be more convenient than changing cartridge connections would be to swap + and - at one end of one speaker cable.

Also, I'm wondering about anti-skating, which might be more critical than with your previous cartridge as a result of the ART9's higher compliance.  When you view the cartridge from the front while it is in the groove of a rotating record does the cantilever appear to be deflected significantly to the left or the right, relative to the nominally straight ahead position it should have when the stylus is lifted off of the record?  If so, you may want to readjust anti-skating per the procedure described in my two posts dated 4-11-2016 in this thread.

Regards,
-- Al