At33ptg II perfect straight out the box

Update: 

Turns out I had been listening to this cartridge slightly ‘tail up’. I took several photos into Photoshop and confirmed it. Dropping the VTA dial to the lowest point (did not know it went that far below zero) on my Technics 1200G was not enough to get the tonearm parallel to the record. Getting a 4.5mm Herbies mat on top of the stock rubber mat got me there.
I had about 20 hours on the cartridge at this point. The VTA change instantly gave the cart a smoother, easier presentation. Then about 8-10 hours later it really opened up. Also turns out that this tonearm position helps to take the edge of of my VM750SH mm cart as well. I’ve always eye-balled VTA against a gridded acrylic plate thinking that this was good enough. Not good enough. 
This is a great cart! Next one will be the AT33SA,
 

Another update:

I had been running the AT33PTGII at 60db gain. I had tried the 66db gain settings when I initially installed the cartridge and I liked it but worried that it might be too much gain.The 60db setting sounded fine so I left it there. Then yesterday I plugged in this formula (NdB = 20 log V1/V2) and found out that I should be using 70db to get the best signal to noise ration. Luckily my Hagerman Trumpet MC has a 68db gain setting also. Well, It does indeed sound better. Much better slam in the bass…but also subtle details showing up too. Cannot believe I have been listening to this cart for so long at suboptimal levels.

Listening to a fresh AT33PTG/II running into a Sutherland Loco right now. Works very well as a 10 Ohm impedance cartridge with plenty of gain and drive. With a new out of the box setup, I‘ve got a Jelco TK850S headshell that’s fairly parallel and tracking at 1.95 grams producing stellar results, price be damned. Overall the sound is very neutral. The apparent speed provides resolution while the full, slightly damped sounding low end helps to dispel any dryness to the overall sound. The only criticism is that leading edges of bass notes, say under 500hz or so, are not as articulate as the big boy cartridges. Maybe this will improve with mileage. Fantastic AT build quality. Easy to recommend.

Sandthemail, Do you own a linestage?  Does it add gain?  What is the input sensitivity of your amplifiers (the amount of signal voltage needed to drive them to full output)?  All these factors and others, like the sensitivity of your spkrs, contribute to the gain characteristics of your particular system.  60db phono gain plus the gain afforded by your linestage, if any, might well add up to about 70db or even more gain.  Also, there is no such thing as too much gain, if you have an attenuator, although purists like to use as little gain as needed.

@sandthemall , as it has been thankfully stated elsewhere:

“. . . your direct experience counts of course.”

👍