After over a year of pursuit I’ve just received the Audio Technica ART20 cartridge in for review. As a long time AT fan I thought it would be something really special, and my goodness it really is… I got it up and running on the GyroDec/SME IV around 7pm Sunday night and nearly made it to daylight the following morning just playing records. The Lyra Kleos SL was superb but this is just stunning…
I love it when a piece of equipment comes in that astounds me with its brilliance. The problem is my bank manager loves it less…
The Audio Technica ART-1 was my all time favourite cartridge. After a Karma and a couple of Troika’s I was a bit shocked at how much the ART-1 pushed the boundaries. When my Krystal eventually goes west the ART-20 is definitely on my radar.
Currently it’s on a Trichord Dino Mk3 with Never Connected power supply and ultimate cable and I’ve been moving between 100 Ohms and 1000 Ohms loading (and prefer the latter). I plan to try it with the PS Audio Stellar shortly though which offers even more fine tuning of loading. As Geko says these top end AT’s are just exceptional.
I think Lyra and other similar boutique brands create some delightful cartridges too but the economies of scale and technology available to AT and Ortofon makes them pretty exceptional at the price point.
I love the body shape and materials (titanium etc) but the mounting position on the SME IV makes it stick out a long way ahead of the arm giving a ducks beak kind of impression visually which I’m not too fond of. My resident AT-OC9 actually looks better on the arm I think, but sonically this is light years ahead…
