My favourite cartridge has been the Garrott P77 for years,and more so since I got the Jico SAS a while ago,which made a huge difference to the sound.Still haven't tried out the neos SAS I bought this year.

Bought a Garrott K2 cartridge off TMe this week,arived today.It's the P77's smaller brother/sister!
Actually there are 3 versions K1,K2 and K3,with improvements in the stylus fitted to each.Same body as the P77.But not sure that it's the same inside.

Fitted it to my SME3 today with an original stylus.Very musical but with muddy bass.Fitted the original stylus from my A&R P77 and quite an improvement.
Then fitted my P77 SAS stylus to the K2.It's very hard to hear the difference between the P77 and the K2 now.The P77 may have a tiny bit more lower bass,but it's close.More listening to be done but it sounds great anyhow.

Well,back to work.Just thought some one might be interested!

i remember those a&r cartridges - c77, e77, p77

they were popular back in the day when imported hi-fi was limited.

buy the basic model and follow the upgrade path.

i had a p77 on my old rega, followed by the eei 500/700 and grace f9e

Have had a chance to do some more listening,comparing the K2 body and the P77 body.The P77 sounds more grownup,sweeter with a little more and tighter bass,easier to follow. So it looks like it has been tweaked more by the Garrott brothers.But am delighted that the K body sounds so good too.

Thinking about it all,in my opinion the A&R P77 and the Garrott K series sound the same,with the Garrott P77 having been tweaked by the Garrott brothers.

Searching for something else, I came across this....

DarkLantern blog - darklanternforowen.wordpress.com

Nov 30, 2017 6:40:17 GMT 12 neilsan said:

Thinking about it all,in my opinion the A&R P77 and the Garrott K series sound the same,with the Garrott P77 having been tweaked by the Garrott brothers.

The A&R P77 is an unsung gem. I regret letting mine go with a table I flicked too cheap...

Yes the P77 was a goody. Sold lots of them in the 80's.

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Never had one of the A&R carts strangely enough. Did have a couple of the eei that MW mentioned, though I cant recall the model numbers. what happened to them ?

i had an eei 500, 700 stylus and mcp555 moving coil.
the parabolic stylus profile was a usp.
all good cartridges, competitive in those import restricted days.

the eei brand seems to have disappeared ~mid-80s when max townshend moved to the uk.