Expensive MC's, are they worth it?

[Arkless Electronics]

I guess it could be said that as a MC cart, when taken reductio ad absurdum, is nothing more complicated than two small coils of wire being waggled in front of a magnet by a cantilever bearing a stylus at the far end.... As such, the innards of a £200 and £2000 example are virtually identical. I'm going to make a wild observation that there should be no reason that MC cart of "as good as it gets" quality could not be offered for sale at say £250... and that maybe cheaper, less competent examples are deliberately held back in their performance in order to give an upgrade path of increasing profitability for the manufacturers...

Look at the precision micro engineering involved in a laser pick up for a CD player or, identically, a £15 DVD drive and tell me that it is in any way less intricate or less difficult to manufacture than even a £2k MC cart... The difference being that probably 80% of the worlds population wants a DVD drive in their PC or DVD player for the telly and so the profit comes from the universal demand... The high end MC cart is easier to make but only maybe 1 in 100,000 people want one...

It would not surprise me if for big companies like Ortofon or Audio Technica if costs only say £10 to make a £200 cart and £20 to make a £2000 cart... and that the prices are entirely due to it being such a small market for such a niche product... I'll get my coat

[Arkless Electronics]

I have found with MM carts the sound is coloured / muddy
With high end mc carts they become more clinical / clear / crisp / defined , If you want to hear the music MC for me every time

+1

[Bigman80]

I think it's budget dependant.

If you can spend £10k plus on a cartridge, phono stage and amplification, then another £2k on speakers, I am pretty sure the margin of difference in MC to MM would be substantially different. However at the level I'm playing at I'm not so sure.

I've never owned a high level MM and I'm currently using a ZYX bloom MC. Which is their introduction to High end (their description)

I have notice a difference but I upgraded my amp, speakers, interconnects, speaker wire and cartridge at the same time so who knows what's been the biggest difference in my system.

It does all sound very good now though

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[farflungstar]

If you heard the allaerts in a top notch system I think you'd treatise the gob smacking difference between it and lesser/cheaper carts. I was blown away by the difference when I mounted it.

Adey

In perpetual pursuit.

[petrat]

Agreed Adey. IME, a good mm can sometimes out-perform a poor mc ... but a properly good mc is in a different league entirely.

[farflungstar]

How's the Grado Peter?
I think there are some excellent mid priced MC that perform very very well but which are ultimately limited by price. An AT cart produced in the hundreds of thousands on a production line in Japan can never possess the refinement of character of a hand built cart that is made by a craftsman who truly takes pride in what they build and the results of their labour. The Allaerts is one such cart, as is the Miyajima Shilabe which is waiting in its box to be mounted tomorrow.

I'm not saying that at 10k the law of diminishing returns doesn't kick in but the difference between an excellent mid priced cart at £800 and a excellent 3k cart is revelatory, in my experience.

Adey

In perpetual pursuit.

[montesquieu]

Agreed Adey. IME, a good mm can sometimes out-perform a poor mc ... but a properly good mc is in a different league entirely.

Absolutley - when everything is in place - TT, arm, phono stage, as well as downstream of course - a serious MC is unquestionably worth it.

Also agree on MM - the majority of budget/low-end MCs can be outperformed by the best MMs for the same sort of money or even a bit less, and do away with step-ups, extra cables etc.

[petrat]

How's the Grado Peter?

Well, on a sample of two (your modified Grado and a previously-owned Cartridgeman MusicMaker), it's looking like I seem to prefer moving iron cartridges to moving magnets. The Grado turns out to be a great match with a 'lowly' 10 inch Jelco 250 ... certainly much better than mc carts I've tried on it, most probably due to higher compliance not transmitting as much energy into the arm. As pointed out above, high-performance mc's make demands on all the partnering equipment.

[Mikeandvan]

Been listening t a myriad of cartridges lately and wondering to myself just much better expensive Moving Coil cartridges than some cheaper options or even Moving Magnets. Very much a topic worthy of debate methinks. Let's not forget that once the transition is made between MM to MC then better electronics to amplify the minuscule signal is needed as well as the leap in price of the device itself. Does it bare comparison to the views of cable sceptics?

Not if you have a habit of getting drunk and playing records......................

[petrat]

Not if you have a habit of getting drunk and playing records......................