Munich 2015

Audio-Technica Introduces Four New Cartridges at High End Munich 2015

Michael Fremer  |  May 21, 2015

Audio-Technica introduced the new AT33sa moving coil cartridge, the company's first to include a Shibata stylus. The cantilever is of tapered boron, the body of precision-cast hard aluminum alloy with top and bottom resin sandwiching. The price: $799

In addition A-T introduced the AT-F2 an elliptial stylus-based MC cartridge, price not yet announced but cost in the UK is £149.

More on the others as information and pricing becomes available.

COMMENTS
mlgrado's picture
Submitted by mlgrado on Fri, 2015-05-22 10:13

YEY!! I currently own the AT33ev... was going to upgrade to the similar cart but with Shibata stylus out of Japan. Glad to see it will be coming to the US!! The price is quite a bit lower than what the import model currently fetches.

vqworks's picture
Submitted by vqworks on Wed, 2015-05-27 14:42

I know most listeners are interested only in the AT33sa and AT-F2 since they're MC cartridges but is there any information about the AT-440MLb and AT-120Eb MM cartridges?

The AT-440ML and AT-440MLa already sounded quite different. I'm guessing much of the difference was attributed to damping at the fulcrum of the stylus. The "a" version had a more conservatively rated frequency response, lower output and higher tracking force. I frequency response plot I saw posted on Audio Circle also showed a mild roll-off in the extreme highs, which most posters on Amazon mistook for a neutral sound.

In contrast, I thought the original ML version sounded better because it genuinely produced better transient definition but some people accused it of sounding bright. I suspect it was the more accurate version.

I'm just wondering what the MLb version has to offer.

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