The AT-MONO 3/SP is a true mono 78 RPM cartridge – one of a select few in the world. A true mono cartridge is designed, wired and built only to retrieve signals from the record grooves in the horizontal plane. The groove of a monaural recording is modulated only in the horizontal plane. Stereo recordings, on the other hand, are cut into the vinyl at a forty-five degree angle with a separate channel of information on each of the grove walls, thus requiring the stylus to pick up signals in both the horizontal and vertical plane. As a stereo cartridge sums the channels internally, it picks up noise from the vertical plane of the record grooves. Interestingly, in a mono record much of the surface noise is in the vertical plane, so avoiding this plane is beneficial. By not even picking up or amplifying this information you eliminate a lot of the noise from mono records that you hear when played back through a stereo cartridge.

High Output Moving Coil Mono Cartridge
The Audio Technica AT-MONO 3/SP cartridge is special. A high output moving coil cartridge of excellent production quality and wound with PCOCC coil for signal purity, it is designed to deliver excellent fidelity and superb clarity when playing 78 RPM mono records. With its high output of 1.2mV, it can be used without additional pre-preamplification or a MC transformer.

As a Moving Coil mono cartridge of superior design and execution, the AT-MONO3/SP offers a listening experience that is close to musical truth with the detail, high frequency extension, sound stage, harmonic layering, and low frequency response that make other cartridges seem flat and constricted.