Best cheapo Cartridge
The Audio Technica has great depth and etched high frequencies. But there's some grain or slight harshness in the rendition. So I compared my AT VM540SH with my Decca Super Gold/Paratrace and Decca Garrott Export and both Decca's really are in another league. Dark, quiet backgrounds, voices that sound real, speakers disappeared, but most absolutely the difference is that the Decca makes music with emotion. No contest, notwithstanding the priced difference. |
Dear @pops : You don't need to look for vintage cartridges when you can own today really good cartridge performers coming from many solid and well regarded manufacturers as: Ortofon, Nagaoka, Grado, SoundSmith, Audio Note, Audio Technica, Goldring, Clearaudio and others. With the advantage that you have a manufacturer warranty for your unit and for the replacement stylus when you need it. Only you need is to go to those manufacturers sites, here Audio Technica: https://www.audio-technica.com/cgi-bin/product_search/cartridges/cartridges.pl?lang=eng Btw, @noromance it's obvious that a 249.00 cartridge can't compete with that Decca but for its low price is better performer that what we can think. Audio Technica has all alternatives for any audiophile but other manufacturers have good options too. Audio Note MM are excellent. Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS, R. |
The Sumiko Pearl works for me (Linn Basik/Akito)...I like these enough that I've replaced the stylus once for 50 bucks or something, but for whatever they sell for now ($120 maybe?) as I assume they're discontinuing these things, they're a bargain as they're a great sounding MM cartridge that seems to suffer from the fact that it's so inexpensive. |
