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Best cartridge from amazon.com

I received some gift cards to amazon.com for my grad school graduation. I'd like to pick up a new cartridge that is an improvement over my stock Goldring Elan. The Denon DL160 seems to be pretty well respected. Is that one of the better choices at amazon.com?

You can see my two channel system this cartridge will move into below. I'm also looking to upgrade my NAD PP-2 phono preamp to something much better. With that also in mind, are there any phono preamps in the $300-500 range that would pair well with an amazon.com cartridge?

Been considering Jolida, Bottlehead, Rogue Stealth as possible phono preamps. Would something like this be a huge step up from my NAD PP-2?

Thanks for the help.
captainchunk
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
I have both the Denon DL-160 and the Audio Technica AT150MLX. Both are available from Amazon. The AT150MLX is almost twice as much money, but I can assure you that it is a much better cartridge. On its own, the DL-160 sounds good, has a nice tonal balance, good bass. But play the AT150MLX for awhile and try to go back to the DL-160 and you'll find that a lot of the music is missing.

My turntable is a Technics SL1210 M5G, but its tonearm's effective mass is pretty close to that of the RB-250, so the compliance/tonearm effective mass should be a similar match.
mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
4,987 posts
 
Audio Technica AT150MLX
captainchunk OP
6 posts
 
Thanks for the responses. The AT150MLX looks interesting. Not sure I can spend that kind of cash on it though.

I assume that both the DL160 and the AT150MLX are big steps up from my Elan.
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