emaidel
02-23-2006, 09:24 AM
I'm curious to know if any AR members have ever had the opportunity to audtion a Stanton Collector's Series 100 cartridge, and/or might even own one. I have to admit that I hadn't even known about it until I re-joined Stanton as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing back in the early 90's, and took one home for a listen.
Though the late Walter Stanton emphatically refused to believe that moving coil cartridges could ever be any good, and that all of his magnetic models were inherently superior (a view I, and the rest of the industry don't adhere to), I have to admit the Collector's Series blew me away, and I'm using it to this day. That says a lot because I prefer it to anything I've heard from Shure (including the final version of the V/15 before it too was discontinued) and also to several moving coil models from both Ortofon and Denon (which I liked a lot).
The cartridge has long been discontinued, and is basically a fine-tuned version of the 881-S, along with a sapphire-coated, beryllium cantilever and nude Stereohedron stylus. Each model, aside from the normal Stanton calibration, came with individually-run frequency response graphs too. One last item: it was exactly the same thing as the Pickering XSV-5000, though it didn't come packaged with two useless additional styli - one for 78's, and the other for mono LP's.
So, anybody care to comment? I look forward to hearing from AR members with experience with this, or the Pickering equivalent.
Though the late Walter Stanton emphatically refused to believe that moving coil cartridges could ever be any good, and that all of his magnetic models were inherently superior (a view I, and the rest of the industry don't adhere to), I have to admit the Collector's Series blew me away, and I'm using it to this day. That says a lot because I prefer it to anything I've heard from Shure (including the final version of the V/15 before it too was discontinued) and also to several moving coil models from both Ortofon and Denon (which I liked a lot).
The cartridge has long been discontinued, and is basically a fine-tuned version of the 881-S, along with a sapphire-coated, beryllium cantilever and nude Stereohedron stylus. Each model, aside from the normal Stanton calibration, came with individually-run frequency response graphs too. One last item: it was exactly the same thing as the Pickering XSV-5000, though it didn't come packaged with two useless additional styli - one for 78's, and the other for mono LP's.
So, anybody care to comment? I look forward to hearing from AR members with experience with this, or the Pickering equivalent.