I was looking at some of the first phono cartridges made, and in a description of early types it mentioned how the ceramic or piezo transducer has the advantage of high output.
I've finally bought one.
the main problem seems to be the mechanical assembly, the quality of the needle.
the sound is very direct. very clean as far as articulation.
the feel is actually better than the MM equivalent.
you have to consider that 40 or 50 dB of gain ALWAYS has it's toll on feel and musical detail, and piezo pickups can go from 100mv output to 750 mV!
the only problem is matching impedance.
right now I've got a german mic input transformer wired backwards but I will have to sadly build a buffer to raise impedance to 1 meg.
there is also the issue of eq. piezo's are not very accurate in freq. response but you can get a decent representation of the recording with NO eq.
the piezo's natural curve doubles the RIAA curve, and can be tweaked in the buffer.
I am going back, way back..
