Turn volume down before playing. Unpleasant test tone.
This is the text I posted on YouTube to accompany the video:
Audiorpheus (https://www.youtube.com/c/Audiorpheus…) posted a lot of interesting and fun videos related to affordable record playing. He used the Hi-Fi News Test LP to perform some tracking tests, with the Nagaoka MP-110 coming out on top.
For this short video I used my copy of the Hi-Fi News test disc to compare a Grado Green cartridge with an Audio-Technica AT92E. I bought the Grado for $100 a couple of years ago, and the Audio-Technica was purchased new in 2013 for only $20 (the price was increased later to $30). The cartridges are mounted and aligned in identical head shells, and installed on a vintage Pioneer PL-112D turntable.
The Grado Green buzzes just as badly as the Grado Black did for Audiorpheus. The AT92E, however, performs just as well on the difficult inner-groove tracking test as the Nagaoka did for Audiorpheus.
The replacement for the AT92E is the AT85EP, for $40. If the AT85EP performs as well as the older model, it’s today’s #1 tracking bargain, costing a fraction the price of a Nagaoka MP-110.
The AT85 is sort of the P-Mount version of the AT95.
Google tells me that my AT-LP120XUSB comes with an AT95E cartridge. And a thread at Audiokarma (https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/puzzled-audio-technica-at92e-vs-at95e-at311ep.552788/) tells me that’s relatively similar to the AT92E. But there are just too many variables!!