Vintage MONO Cartridge Question ?

A true mono cartridge, which has only one coil, can have vertical compliance without generating any noise as a result, if there is no mechanism to transduce vertical movement into an audio signal.

My point exactly. Vertical compliance by itself does not disqualify a cartridge from being "true mono."

Another issue, I much prefer 2-channel mono over the idea of using only one of two speakers when listening to mono. Old habits die hard, I guess. But this is why I personally have no interest in ancient true mono, 2-pin cartridges from the 50s. (While I am a big proponent of vintage stereo cartridges.)

No argument here! I *love* mono played through two speakers, esp. with my Maggie dipoles which energize the entire room. It's also a great way for tuning the system. If your mono signal is dead center between the speakers and you get a sense of depth, you're on the right track.

An answer to my original question ?    Buelller........Bueller.......

lopscri wrote:

An answer to my original question ?   Buelller........Bueller.......

Maybe you should write some vintage enthusiasts, such as Art Dudley w/Stereophile. You need someone really familar with old mono carts, which isn't exactly mainstream, even for vinyl enthusiast audiophiles, evidently. I'm a bit of an anachronism myself--big band enthusiast since 1965, grew up in a house with a big tube Zenith radio/78 rpm record player. I'm 63, have been at audio since I was 18. My phono stage and line stage are both PTP hand-wired all-tube units. I have at least 80 mono LPs ranging from the '50s (Belafonte's "Calypso", RCA Ortho-phonics, etc.) to originals from the '60s to Prestige and Riverside mono jazz reissues.

And yet I have absolutely no knowledge of pre-1962 mono cartridges.

Ok, I know, this is a very old discussion. Nevertheless I´m wondering if anyone ever made a comparism of the pickups in questions.

I´ve done that with AT-3LP, AT-33 Mono, Denon DL-102, EMT OFD 15 Mono, Ortofon CG25i, GE RPX Single Play, Triple Play as well as Pierre Clement EB-25 and Fairchild 225-A. And I´ve gamed that out on Audio Technica ATP-12P, Audax KT-16, Livingstone as well as Fairchild 280-A tonearms. Furthermore I´ve pairde those pickups with Fidelity Research FR-64s and Schick 12".

Consequently some of those carts got also a run with a vintage Gray Research 602C Phono EQ.

When asked for a ranking I´d go with:

Fairchild 225-A
Pierre Clement EB-25

now nothing comes for a long time 
Ortofon CG25i
EMT OFD 15
GE PRX Single Play
GE RPX Triple Play

again nothing in here for a long time
AT-3LP, AT-33 Mono, Denon DL-102