I would place the old steel Campy Record Strada up against this, and the Tange Levin with it.

When an A9 is adjusted right, it has a little more drag than a good ball based HS.

Great part, just be prepared to add spacers under the locknut, on many bikes.

Good for you - give us the name!!!

+1 I used that headset on my Raleigh professional and have not regretted it. I think the finish looks very nice too, it matches my Cinelli stem and bars really well.

Err, they do.

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-8422422...2076_249244322

Seller's called "absolutecycles" from the UK. It's a long ways away from California, where I am, but the 100% rating and very low price on the NOS A9 makes it a worthwhile risk to me, personally, to order it from them.
A few more A9s from other sellers popped up since I last looked.........maybe A9s aren't that rare afterall??
Like I said before, it was used in thousands of Peugeots, Treks, Gitanes and a few Schwinn models in the 80s.

Chombi
84 Peugeot PSV
85(?) Vitus Carbone 7 Plus

I don't mean to steal this post, but thought it might be a good place to pose this question. What causes brinnelling? ( Hope I spelled that correctly) I've bought 3 steal bikes this year. 2 of them felt a little rough in the steering. One of them with an 85 Shimano 600 6207 headset appeared to never have been repacked. It had very, very slight pitting on the fork race. But, once I rebuilt it, it seems to be fine. The other, off a 92 bike, had significant pitting around the fork race. I replaced this headset with a Tange Levin because the Levin appears to have been original equipment on the third bike, an 84 Specialized Expedition, and seems to still be working fine. The older bikes still working fine, the newer one with pitting. Is it just a matter of the headset not being adjusted properly, or that the grease has been compromised and the bearings sticking in one place?

I would say that most better quality headsets should not experience any brineling in normal conditions if the heat treatment for both bearings and races were done properly and the headset is adjusted properly. It's when the bike is abused and not serviced (cleaned and re-greased specially if ridden regularly in wet conditions) regularly and properly that the headset is left for long periods of times with too much play or overtigntened, then the races and balls will be damaged.

Chombi
84 Peugeot PSV
85(?) Vitus Carbone 7 Pus

[QUOTE=rothenfield1;9995621Is it just a matter of the headset not being adjusted properly, or that the grease has been compromised and the bearings sticking in one place?[/QUOTE]

you got it.

when you adjust the cups too tightly in a bottom bracket or hubs, they wear evenly since they spin in circles. if you do the same to a headset, it creates small grooves since you notice you only turn your handlebars slightly. this creates the indexing effect.

i just made that up, but i'm pretty sure that's what happens.

my experience is that headsets adjusted too loosely are the quickest to suffer brinelling

Brinelling is caused by an impact, ie the races show indentations from the balls. What many people think of brinelling is actually fretting or wear caused by small movements in the same position. This causes the grease to migrate away from the bearing surfaces and the metal to metal contact creates wear and/or corrosion at the contact points. On bikes this is caused by the constant road vibration in the straight ahead position. It can be caused during shipment of bearing assemblies when the rotating parts aren't rotating but are vibrated while stationary.

The Galli-labeled headset was a Stronglight A9. At least mine is. I put a Galli road group on my Early back in '84 or so, consisting of Galli brakes, crank, and derailleurs, Maillard hubs and pedals, the aforementioned Stronglight headset, and Stronglight sealed BB and shifters. The headset is one of the few survivors, and it hardly shows any wear (pictures).

I have not seen them in the flesh, but Boulder/Rene Herse has these Miche needle-bearing headsets. Worth considering.

I guess except for the old Stronglight Delta, NOW they do. and that's great!

Chombi

As an experiment, I put an A9 on my commuter bike in 1987 and rode it for 20 years with no maintenance. When I opened it up in 2007, this is what I found:

http://os2.dhs.org/~john/A9.jpg

Virtually no wear on the top races, and very minimal wear on the bottom. I swapped top for bottom and reassembled. I'll report back in another 20 years. :)

Errr, Campy Record?? Mine has been bomber forever! In fact, all Campy headsets

Thumbs up:

* Tange Falcon - I have this one on my Miyata 1000 and it is as smooth as butter.
* Stronglight B10/A9 - light, and well-regarded
* Kuwahara-branded ones found on many, many Apollo bicycles - they just seem to be of a decent quality. Easy to adjust and seem to last well.

Thumbs down / questionable:

* Shimano Sante - not well-regarded, though I wish I could try one out on one of my bikes
* Campy SR - seems to get a bad rap for pitted lower cups and crown races. Anyone care to comment?
* Any headset with a poorly-machined locknut. I can't count the number of crappy headsets I've come across where a "standard" 32mm headset spanner is too loose, even though this is obviously the size they are supposed to take.