The Stanton Collector's Series 100

[emaidel]

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.

[Geoffcin]

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. So, anybody care to comment? I look forward to hearing from AR members with experience with this, or the Pickering equivalent.

As my first job out of high school was in with Stanton Magnetics back in the 70's. It was a short ride for me as I grew up in Plainview. I worked in the assembly dept where we made feedback devices for fighter aircraft. Also made the linear motors for the "it's a small world" exibit for Disneyworld Japan.

Still have a couple of 681EEE floating around somewhere. Almost bought the magnetic levitating TT too, but spent my money on a car instead.

[emaidel]

As my first job out of high school was in with Stanton Magnetics back in the 70's. It was a short ride for me as I grew up in Plainview. I worked in the assembly dept where we made feedback devices for fighter aircraft. Also made the linear motors for the "it's a small world" exibit for Disneyworld Japan.

Still have a couple of 681EEE floating around somewhere. Almost bought the magnetic levitating TT too, but spent my money on a car instead.

I grew up in Syosset - just a hop, skip and a jump away. Worked for Lafayette while you were at Stanton.

You also made a very wise choice not to purchae the Stanton turntable. It was one of the worst products Stanton ever made, and one of the worst turntables to have ever been made. Certainly a 110% defective rate said it all!