Switching to moving coil

[Mike - H]

Hi guys, happy New Year, hope you all had a good Christmas. Leading up to Christmas I invested heavily in my vinyl system, I wanted to try a mono cartridge as about 20% of my discs are mono. What I didn’t want was a load of messing about switching from one to the other, so I went for an Audio-Technica AT33EV and its mono sibling. As these are my first foray into MC I also splashed out on a Graham Slee Reflex C plus a Yanis lead.

So today was my first serious listening session since installing these upgrades. My first impressions of moving coil carts is very positive, a level of clarity and a depth of bass I wasn’t expecting. After listening to a couple 33s I went to one of three 45rpm albums I got for Christmas, Dire straits Brothers in Arms, really impressed by quality from this format. I was thinking I wouldn’t buy many more 45s because of having to get up and turn them every couple of tracks (I am getting on in years after all) but I now think that if your favourite albums are available in this format they would be well worth it.

I also experimented with several different mats, for about 6 or 7 years I’ve been using a TAD spotmat #10 (google it) So I tried a few others to see if things could be improved, I tried the original Gerrard mat which I’d never tried, then a cork/rubber mixture, an acrylic mat and a leather mat and I’ve ended up back at my spot mat. I can’t say it’s miles better than any of the others but nor can I say any of them were better, so I’m staying with what know I like. Might make a new one in a different colour, lime green’s not doing it for me anymore, more expense, 99p.

As every silver lining has to have a cloud, the mono cart isn’t working on both channels unless I switch the reflex C to mono, which I guess is just splitting the one side. I don’t’ know of any tests or checks other than refitting the cartridge pins in case ones a bad contact, but I’m expecting to have to send it back for testing and/or replacement but at least I’m chuffed with the switch to moving coil if only in stereo for now.

[dave2010]

Years (very many) since I had a mono cartridge. Don't they just have only a couple of wire connections, so would only drive one side or a pre-amp? Maybe modern ones do have connections for a stereo pre-amp, with an internal configuration to give a suitable output.

Intrigued!