[William Sommerwerck]

It was up something like 14dB at 20kHz. (No, there was no
significant suckout in the "presence" region.)

I'd like to see that curve. I suspect there was a bit of a dip in the 2-6
KHz range, maybe only a dB or two.

I know what that sort of dip sounds like, and this pickup was rather darker
and duller than that.

Most pickups of that era -- MF or MC -- suffered from this problem.


I also suspect that the peak above 20 KHz
was very narrow - basically a very lightly damped resonance.

It certainly looked like a tip/vinyl resonance. The test disk didn't go
beyond 20kHz, so I don't know how wide the peak was.


I also would
like to know what was going on below 200 Hz. Low damping in the treble
sometimes comes with low damping in the bass, so the response in the
80-160
range may have been down a bit, too.

The damping that affects LF behavior has little or no effect on the
tip/groove resonance. The latter is often undamped or underdamped --
especially in high-inductance designs -- to mechanically compensate for
electrical rolloff.


Old data can look quite different when interpreted in the light of far
newer
information about audibility.

I never cared for the Denon 103C MC pickup because of its slight depression
in that range. This pickup sounded much darker than that -- and it did not
have a depression that would account for it.