Audio Technica AT33 PTG or AT33R


Anyone here have any experience with either of these cartridges? I am shopping for a MC cart to use with my VPI HW 19 IV/SME 309/Azur 640p setup and would appreciate any feedback, positive or negative, on these cartridges. I have done a web search but have not found much info on this line of cartridge. Thanks in advance.
jjfox

Showing 1 response by palasr

The 33PTG is a fine cartridge - maybe just a bit toward the darker side of neutrality, but with a generous bottom end, and capable of extracting a lot more information out of the grooves than the DL103, for example. That said, the 103 is an amazing cartridge for the money and has to be one of the most consistently musical cartridges ever made (especially if your tastes lean away from classical as the cart falls short on unraveling complexity and on dynamic scaling). That said, the 33PTG is only $150-200 more than the plain 103, so it's well worth exploring.

IMO, spend your money on a good phono stage first, and worry about the cartridge second...

-Richard