ADC RSQ31 ()
That satisfying click when the needle drops? This cartridge made it happen—quiet, precise, and built to track without fuss.
Overview
The ADC RSQ31 is a turntable cartridge from ADC—almost certainly Audio Dynamics Corporation, the vintage audio outfit known for solid, no-nonsense phono cartridges, not the medical device company of the same initials. It’s the kind of component you never saw unless you were poking around under a dust cover, but it mattered. It’s what translated the grooves into sound, and judging by the ecosystem of replacement parts still floating around, it did its job well enough to earn quiet loyalty. The fact that you can still buy a new stylus for it decades later says more than any spec sheet ever could.
But that’s part of its charm. The RSQ31 was likely the go-to for mid-tier turntables in its day: reliable, replaceable, and designed to work without drawing attention to itself. It belongs to a family of ADC cartridges that shared stylus assemblies, meaning parts compatibility was built in from the start. If you had an RSQ30 or a QLM33mkII, you could probably swap in an RSQ31 stylus and keep spinning.
Specifications
| Manufacturer | ADC (Audio Dynamics Corporation) |
| Product type | Turntable cartridge |
| Tracking force | 2 to 4 grams |
| Stylus type | 7 MIL diamond |
| Compatible record speeds | 33 and 45 RPM |
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