Audio-Technica wants to upgrade your turntable and improve the sound of your vinyl with new cartridges and accessories
Introducing the AT33x cartridges

If you're looking to breathe new life into your turntable, Audio-Technica might have just the thing.
It's announced a raft of new cartridges and other accessories that promise to elevate your vinyl listening experience. Let's see what's new.
First, the cartridges. The AT33x dual moving coil phono cartridges have a host of sonic and engineering upgrades over the previous AT33 Series.
The five-strong line-up includes two mono cartridges (for those listening to LPs mixed in a single channel), which claim to be unaffected by vertical noise components picked up from the record groove.
All five models have Audio-Technica's dual moving coil structure with independent left and right coils for the stereo units, providing distinct channel separation, along with a sound that's "dynamic yet delicate and refined" according to Audio-Technica.
All models are hand-crafted in Japan, and have threaded mounting holes for easier installation. Their composite cartridge bodies are made of die-cast zinc, aluminium and high-rigidity polymer.
The cartridge base is made from rigid die-cast zinc to help resonance suppression, and make the bass and midrange clearer.
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The new cartridges use PCOCC (pure copper by Ohno continuous casting) and gold-plated cartridge pins, and they have either neodymium or samarium cobalt high-strength magnets.
You can use each with a variety of tonearms too, thanks to the newly developed suspension and rubber damper design, which has a lower compliance than Audio-Technica's other cartridges.
The new cartidges are:
- AT33xMLB: microlinear nude stylus, solid boron tapered cantilever – £699 / $899 (around AU$1400)
- AT33xMLD: microlinear nude stylus, duralumin tapered pipe cantilever – £599 / $799 (AU$1200)
- AT33xEN: 0.3 x 0.7 mil elliptical nude stylus, duralumin tapered pipe cantilever – £519 / $699 (around AU$1000)
- AT33xMONO/I: mono, 0.65 mil conical nude stylus, duralumin pipe cantilever – £479 / $649 (around AU$1075)
- AT33xMONO/II: mono, 0.65 mil conical nude stylus, duralumin pipe cantilever – £349 / $449 (around AU$690)
The company has announced a range of turntable accessories, too. These include two new slipmats (one made of cork and rubber, and one just of rubber), two cartridge alignment tools and a stainless-steel disc stabiliser. Prices start at $14 (around £11 / AU$22).
There are also new AT-ST3 Speaker Stands, made from rigid alloy steel with vibration-damping cork feet. They cost $59 (around £44 / AU$91).
If your turntable needs some love, the above might be worth checking out. They're all much cheaper than buying a new model, but if you do want a more serious upgrade, consult our list of the best turntables.
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Joe has been writing about tech for 20 years, first on staff at T3 magazine, then in a freelance capacity for Stuff, The Sunday Times Travel Magazine (now defunct), Men's Health, GQ, The Mirror, Trusted Reviews, TechRadar and many more. His specialities include all things mobile, headphones and speakers that he can't justifying spending money on.
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