Originally Posted by
Vrajbasi
Be it moving coil or moving magnet I find many cartridges simply do not cut the mustard in general sounding rather lean and bleached, the days of the great moving magnets such a Audio Technica atm170ml and180ml and shure ultra 500 have long gone. I can quite happily listen to the top end grado,s while they can be a little un entertaining but prefer these to 80 percent of moving coils out there. I have a London reference while I love it very much could not use it as a only cartridge I would want something a bit more refined and full bodied. Most moving coils to me sound rather thin and bleached even the likes of koetsu do not have there engaging qualities they once had. I just purchased a ortofon Ana diamond and again while I hear fantastic detail and wonderful imaging it just does not make music in my opinion the way I personally like. Moving magnets never quite have the detail and insight full ness of a good coil but at least in some instances do not have the hardness and bleached quality many coils have, generally I have found many expensive coils uninspiring to say the least. Luckily there are some lovely cartridges available that still make me smile I always keep a host of spu cartridges to make me smile while they dont do everything at least they have body and scale, the deccas have to be mentioned for there fun perspective, the Miajima's and very nice while they can be heavy bottomed would certainly put them in the high rank for there musical abilities and am happy to live with them. If I were lower down the scale I still like the grado's while lack the ultimate detail can sound very musical and rewarding to say the least. Some of the older cartridges from years back just seemed to have more body and soul and less analytic in my opinion. As moving coils go the likes of hannah while not the ultimate can be rather nice and pleasant and kind of affordable. I just find the whole cartridge buying experience rather daunting one cannot really listen to most models at home and even if you do one gets sample variations even two ortofon ana cartridges do not sound identical but compared to most others ortofons are better in this regard. Moving magnets can sound good as can good coils its certainly not a case of spending more and getting more in my opinion and certainly not easy to choose the right cartridge for many one has to buy blindly and hope for the best. For now I listen to the Etsuro line of cartridges and smile even that was quite daunting as I had to trust my dealer but generally he is pretty much spot on as he has heard almost everything on the market. I have come to the conclusion there are a handful of great cartridge manufacturer's out there and one just has to be careful at whatever price point, as its certainly not a easy purchase and can easily left very very un satisfied.
Shure ultra 500 in a Martin bastin body and Jico stylus for me, wouldn't swap it for anything. I had a decca c4e that gave that up front dynamic sound but it also picked out every speck of dust on a record and drove me nuts.
Bakoon 13r Denon DP80 Stax UA-70 Shure Ultra 500 in a Martin Bastin body with jico stylus, project ds2 digital Rullit aero 8 field coils in tqwt speakers
Office system, DIY CSS fullrange speakers with aurum cantus G2 ribbons yulong dac Sony STR6055 receiver Jvc QL-A51 direct drive turntable, Leema sub. JVC Z4S cart is in the house
Garage system another Sony receiver, cassette deck
System components are subject to change without warning and at the discretion of the owner.