Yesterday, after forgetting vinyl was playing (damn these silent stages and clean records!) I bumped into the rack next to my TT causing it to skip horribly and reminding me all too late that there was indeed vinyl in progress . . .

Re-set the stylus to the record . . . oh dear unbalanced (and not so good) sound poured out through my speakers.

Upon inspection I have slightly buggered my Denon DL-304's needle. I always suspected it was not perfectly straight since I bought it but hadn't really bothered me as it fell in line when on the record and it sounds wonderful. Alas neither of those statements could now be said to be true.

After a minute of wallowing in self pity, I pulled myself up off the floor (I did genuinely roll about on the floor in a sort of adult tantrum as if to portray a 'why me why now everything is terrible' outburst) as I remembered I had a cart stored away that could maybe save the day.

Quickly removed the Denon from Ittok III arm (a lot quicker than putting it on!) and within a couple of minutes I had a shiny new Audio Technica OC9 XEN mounted in its place. Nice threads on top of the cart so fitting was a doddle, it lines up perfectly with the squared off edges of the shell incorporated into my arm, it actually looks custom fitted.

Got lucky with the alignment too, minor adjustments later it was spot on.

I was also able to increase tracking weight from 1.2 to 2.0g enabling me to move the counterweight closer to the pivot of the arm (which someone told me was a good thing up to a point) so literally within 20 minutes of all hope being lost I was back up and running again.

Well this thing is completely silent, tracks like a dream and is already sounding as good as the Denon with very low hours on it.


I'm fully aware some pics would be useful to accompany this story so I will duly oblige later.


Would be interested to hear what anyone thinks of the new lineup of the OC9 carts after some break-in time.

Also if anyone wants a super easy swap-in cart for their Ittok's I can thoroughly recommend the AT's, they are top quality. No messing about with nuts/long bolts etc.