MEASURED PERFORMANCE
At a low tracking force of 1.4gms tracking was fair. A high lateral cut of 63µm was cleared at 300Hz, but only an unimpressive 16cms/sec at 1kHz. The Van den Hul DDT-II Special may well mistrack on strong vocals and a maximum recommended tracking force of 1.5gms gives little leeway to cure this. It is not the best tracker.
    Frequency response was almost bizarrely flat out to 20kHz, with little variation at high frequencies but a peculiar plateau lift of lower frequencies. The DDT-II may well have quite a distinctive sound balance and very smooth, natural treble. On inner grooves tracing loss introduced a small amount of treble fall above 10kHz, hardly enough to soften the sound. This is another accurate cartridge with a neutral sound balance.
Output from the DDT-II Special was reasonable, measuring just 0.88mV at 5cms/sec rms and this will suit most moving coil phono stages.
Vertical tracking angle was very high, over 30degrees. As a result distortion was high at 6.5% on vertical modulation. Lateral distortion was low, measuring 1.1%.
    The DDT-II Special is another MC with an unusually flat frequency response and will likely sound very good. Only VTA is too high. NK

Tracking force    1.4gms
Weight    gms
Vertical tracking angle    25degrees
Frequency response    20Hz - 20kHz
Channel separation    30dB
Tracking ability (300Hz)
lateral    63µm
vertical    45µm
lateral (1kHz)    16cms/sec.
Distortion (45µm)
lateral    1.1%
vertical    6.5%
Output (5cms/sec rms)    0.58mV

FREQUENCY RESPONSE

Red - inner grooves