Air Tight AirTight PC-1 MC Phono Cartridge, SH-µX core material, high energy & low impedance

From my private collection:

This is one of the world famous and best sounding cartridges and I have kept it for many years.

Air Tight PC1 MC Phono Cartridge.

This cartridge is in very good operational and cosmetic condition, the sound is detailed, fast, and dynamic, stylus still sharp, cantilever and suspension is also in excellent condition. Used under 250 hours and has been stored for many years.

Like most vinylphiles, I’ve listened to a lot of fine moving-coil cartridges over the years. The Air Tight PC-1, TAS’ 2006 Phono cartridge of the Year award-winner, is, IMO, the best yet in nearly every aspect of phonographic reproduction—the most complete.

I am scarcely alone in my admiration for the PC-1, which has been a big success critically and commercially. This is not one of those products that hides its light under a bushel. All you have to do is listen to a violin recording, like, say, Joseph Silverstein playing Bartók’s great (and greatly difficult) Sonata for Solo Violin [Columbia], and it quickly becomes obvious that you are getting more information with less distortion and greater speed than you’re used to hearing from an mc.

In the third movement “Melodia,” for instance, when Silverstein plays those tricky high harmonics, you not only hear how these wispy little curlicue-notes sound; you hear how they are sounded. You hear, beneath the harmonics, the faint silken rush of the bow and the shift of fingertips lightly touching strings. This is extraordinary low-level detail, bespeaking a very low noise floor and very high resolution.

But the PC-1 isn’t just very quiet and highly detailed; it’s unusually fast. I thought the London Reference was a world-beater when it came to transient response; but the PC-1 audibly bested it. Just listen to any of the pizzicatos in this same movement of the Bartók Sonata to hear a new benchmark in the lifelike reproduction of plucked strings.

In addition to its world-class distortion, resolution, and speed, the PC-1 is also extremely natural in timbre for a moving coil. Once again, listen to Silverstein’s violin on the double- and triple-stopped chords and trills of the “Melodia.” With their rising treble response, moving coils tend to brighten up or thin out timbres in the upper mids and highs. Not here. (At least, not when the cartridge is properly loaded to 100–500 ohms.)

The PC-1 isn’t just a wonderment in the treble. Its bass is just as remarkable— and in the same ways. On something like Robert Helps’ Steinway on Arthur Berger’s Two Episodes (from New Music for the Piano [CRI), you not only get the fullness of timbre of the big pedaled chords; you get the full energy with which Helps sounds them, the power with which they are projected and sustained. Many moving-coil cartridges (many stereo systems, for that matter) make big instruments like concert grands sound as if they’re getting smaller in volume, power, and projection as they descend in frequency, as if their sound is being funneled to a point, like a “V.” The PC-1 reproduces deep sustained notes as they sound in life—expansive, bottomless, and open, like an upside-down “V.”

Happily, the PC-1 is also exceptional in the midband, reproducing voices from John Shirley-Quirk’s resonant baritone on Lutoslawski’s haunting Les Espaces du sommeil [Columbia] to Joan Baez’s gorgeous soprano on “Gospel Ship” (from Live in Concert [Cisco]) with in-theroom- with-you presence, while, at the same time, fully reproducing the acoustic of the hall each singer is singing in.

Please watch the YouTube videos:

FEATURES:

AMAZING HIGH ENERGY UNDER LOW IMPEDANCE

New, exclusive SH-µX core material made compatible the mutually contradictory factors, high energy & low impedance

Hi-efficiency magnet system allows very few coil windings for low impedance

Impeccable tonal balance offering generous, opulent bass, supple midband & extended, resolved top end

SPECS:

Internal impedance: 1.7 ohms (DCR)

Output voltage: 0.5mV/1kHz

Stylus pressure: 1.9 - 2.2g

Channel balance: within 0.5dB/1kHz

Cantilever: boron

Weight: 11g

This cartridge comes with all original box, screws, stylus guard, specification paper.

I have sold a lot of cartridges and got a lot of good feedback, please check them out.

We guarantee that we will not sell cartridges that are not perfect, if you find that it is not suitable for you after receiving it. We have a full refund policy and you can return it, if you are not satisfied.

And please take a look my other items.

Thanks!

Wayne
Wayne's Audio