[MrFixr55]

Hi Lawrence,
I'm glad that you are making progress. Unfortunately, I can't find any documentation on this cartridge other than it's used in various Seeburg, AMI Rowe and Rock-ola jukeboxes. Make sure that you are using a 3mm stylus (for 78RPM). I may be wrong but I believe that the stylus should either be vertical or pointing slightly toward the front of the tonearm. This is called the vertical tracking angle, and does change with the amount of records on the turntable. Therefore, you can experiment by stacking records to determine if the sound improves or gets worse. Another measurement is azimuth. This is the left-right tilt of the cartridge (and therefore the stylus) staring at the front of the cartridge This angle should be perpendicular to the record and doesn't change with the amount of records on the turntable. The last measurement is overhang. This is how forward or behind the spindle the cartridge is. Since the tonearm moves in an arc, this measurement is a compromise. Draw an imaginary straight line radiating from the spindle, extending to the end of the record with the stylus laying on that line. The cartridge should be "square" with that line, meaning that a line passing through the stylus and perpendicular to a theoretical fore and aft line passing through the center of the cartridge should lie on that imaginary line. Think of your car driving down a straight road. Your car should be straight with the rear wheels perfectly in line with the front wheels, if this makes sense. Bottom line is that cartridge alignment is very important and can vary from model to model depending on relation of the mounting holes to the stylus, height from the mounting face of the cartridge to the stylus, etc.

Finally, there is tracking force. It should be under 10 grams.

To determine the output voltage of this cartridge, I looked at 2 schematics for the jukeboxes that this cartridge is speced for.

One model that uses the cartridge is the Rock-ola Model 1422. The amplifier uses one stage of audio voltage amplification using a 6J5 triode, feeding 2 6L6s through an interstage transformer. This setup would need a cartridge with high output.

However, another model, the Rowe Models A, B, C or D which use this same cartridge. The amplifier for Model A or B uses a 6SJ7 First AF amp stage and 1/2 of a 6SL7 as a second stage amp. The other half of the 6SL7 is used as a phase inverter, getting its signal from a voltage divider in the plate circuit of 2nd AF amp. This circuit drives a pair of 6L6s. Since both the 6SJ7 and 6SL7 are rather high mu tubes, this circuit should be rather sensitive and should have a much higher gain than the Rock-ola 1422.

If you were using a preamp designed for a magnetic cartridge, the Astatic P-51-3 would certainly overload it. If you have a preamp with both magnetic and ceramic inputs, try that. Otherwise, if you have a turntable with a magnetic cartridge, and a preamp for a magnetic cartridge, pipe that into the phono input using a Y connector to join the 2 channels (assuming that this is a stereo turntable) and compare the sound you get with the sound from the Philco turntable.

Hope this helps.