Is a good Cermic Cartridge an Oxymoron?

Elartford,
Google first, ask second should have been my course.
Seems that Micro-Accoustics was making truly high end ceramics up until 1984 (well, high end back then)- with their top-of-line 830CSA Electret @ 10Hz-30kHz +/- 0.75dB freq. response and tracking at an amazing low mass of 0.75 to 1.25 grams with beryllium cantilever - $335.00
These Electret line of ceramic carts came with an internal micro-circuit to convert amplitude and reduce piezo velocity (the non-magnetic transducer material that made ceramics do their thing - made of lead-zarchonium titanate) so that output could be taken to the more prevalent MM input stage. Dang! Thought I could bypass a phono stage altogether.

Superb ceramic cartridges were made by Micro-Acoustics and Weathers -- very refined. A very good series of them was made by Joe Grado around 1962. I have all of these. They are low output cartridges, which allows lower tracking forces. For various reasons (decay, internal contact corrosion, lack of needles), none of these are a good investment today.

Stanton/Pickering never made any piezoelectric cartridges.

Piezoelectric (crystal and ceramic) cartridges were extremely common in low-quality record players. If you buy one of those junky nostalgia things advertised right now, it'll come with one: guaranteed. These have always been low-compliance, high output devices; generally ratty.

Medium-quality ceramics were made by Sonotone. The first stereo cartridge to hit the consumer market was by Electro Voice, a ceramic. All the cartridges I've listed were stereo.

Richard Steinfeld

Would a strain guage work?

"Piezoelectric (crystal and ceramic) cartridges were extremely common in low-quality record players. If you buy one of those junky nostalgia things advertised right now, it'll come with one: guaranteed. These have always been low-compliance, high output devices; generally ratty.'

Like undoubtedly everybody here, I look askance and smirk at those 'nostalgia' machines whenever I see 'em, although I do think it's pretty interesting (if unfortunate in ways) that these players have cropped up so profusely in department and discount stores over the last few years -- surely that says something about a latent demand for people to be able to play their records once again.

But I make excellent use of one of those very same cartridges in my battery-powered Numark portable that I always take along (with a pair of folding Sennheiser headphones) whenever I go used record shopping. And you know what? It doesn't sound like a crappy toy. For a plastic-bodied device that cost as little as it did, I can actually enjoy listening with this unit (provided it's thru the 'phones), and the needle doesn't sound or otherwise seem like it tears up the grooves either. Never have I heard it mistrack more than a slight bit, and most often not at all. Thing's saved me a ton of money in chances not taken, while the discard pile's become vestigal. Oh yes -- Eldartford, it is stereo, however it works. Hi fi? No. But it easily does the job, telling me everything I need to know about the music and playing condition of found records.

Zaikesman...Alright already! Back on 4/17 my posting was all wet. My relative ignorance about ceramic cartridges proves I am a real audiophile.