Pickering XUV/4500Q
A CD-4 cartridge that tracked at a gram or less when almost nothing else could. Pickering made sure you knew it.
Overview
Pickering built the XUV/4500Q for a problem most collectors have long since forgotten: discrete four-channel records, specifically the CD-4 (Quadradisc) system. CD-4 carried a 30 kHz FM-modulated difference signal in the groove wall, and that signal had to be retrieved intact or the quadraphonic effect fell apart. The cartridge had to track that groove at forces light enough to be considered safe. Pickering's own advertising made the claim loudly, billing the XUV/4500Q as tracking "at one gram (or less) in stereo and discrete." The company's copy called the design a "totally new departure," and the pitch was blunt: a pickup that would play stereo, SQ, QS, and discrete with precision at a gram. According to Pickering's advertising, it was "a real first to do it this accurately."
The Quadrahedral stylus assembly was the core of it, paired with the Quadrahedron stylus tip, which was Pickering's own branding for a new tip shape. The company claimed the assembly gave extended tracking ability for both low-frequency and high-frequency tracing. That split mattered for CD-4, because the carrier lived way up high, and a stylus that could not trace it cleanly produced either mistracking or demodulator noise. Pickering also argued the design provided flat response and separation well beyond 50 kHz, the bandwidth needed to capture the 30 kHz FM material on discrete discs. Collectors who have spent time with period CD-4 setups note that the bandwidth claim is the whole ballgame. A cartridge that rolls off before 30 kHz cannot feed a demodulator no matter how well it tracks.
Independent testing backed up a good deal of the marketing. High Fidelity (December 1975, p.76) profiled the cartridge under the headline "Pickering's Entry in the Feather-Touch Race." It noted the Quadrahedral stylus assembly and the record-cleaning brush fitted as standard, and reported output of 3.8 millivolts on the left channel and 3.6 on the right, comfortably within the range of the CD-4 demodulators then on the market. Pickering sold that brush under the "Dustmatic" name. It was a signature of the line, and a practical asset when groove crud was the enemy of both tracking and stylus life.
The cartridge's reputation among the audio press was unusually strong for a quadraphonic product. Pickering ran advertisements gathering the praise. Hirsch-Houck Laboratories, writing in Stereo Review, called the XUV/4500-Q "obviously one of the best phono cartridges presently available." They added that few stereo cartridges could out-perform it in any individual characteristic and that the lab knew of none that could be called a better stereo/CD-4 pickup. B. V. Pisha, reviewing for Audio, ranked it among the top cartridges of the day. Those quotes come from Pickering's own ad copy, so they carry the usual caveat. The labs named were real and the reviews were real, and the consensus was that this was a serious piece of engineering rather than a quad-era novelty.
Audio (November 1975, p.70) put the XUV/4500Q through its equipment-profile paces, and the review's test setup is a window into how seriously the cartridge was taken: a Technics SP-10 turntable with an Audio-technica AT-1009 tonearm, Phase Linear 4000 preamplifiers, Crown D-150 amplifiers, and Micro-Acoustics FRM-1 speakers, with a Janis Audio Associates W-1 subwoofer in the mix. That is not budget-quad gear — it is the rig of someone chasing the last bit of performance out of a wideband cartridge. In its November 1975 issue (p.70), Audio ran an equipment profile of the XUV/4500Q, a sign of how seriously the cartridge was taken by the period press.
Pickering's sister company, Stanton Magnetics, had brought out the first American-made CD-4 cartridge, and Pickering followed with the XUV/4500Q as its own entry in that category. The technology then trickled down. When Audio reviewed the stereo-only XSV/3000 (June 1977, p.104), the magazine noted that its Stereohedron stylus was a modified stereo version of the Quadrahedron, apparently cheaper to produce, and that in A-B listening the two cartridges sounded identical. That made the stereo sibling a match for the quadraphonic XUV/4500Q for buyers who did not want to pay the four-channel premium. By the period's own account, the quad flagship's stereo performance was matched by a cheaper stablemate, so the XUV/4500Q's value rests on its CD-4 capability rather than on any stereo advantage.
The record does not settle production years, so treat the model's timeline as unconfirmed. The period sources establish the cartridge in the market from 1975 through at least 1977, but nothing here pins down when it was introduced or discontinued. Pricing is similarly murky in the available documentation: High Fidelity (December 1975, p.76) reported $139.95. The XUV/4500Q was a premium-priced pickup aimed at the small, committed audience that had invested in CD-4 demodulation and wideband playback gear, and it earned respect from the labs that measured it.
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