Cart update: old TT, new electronics

Some more information. I just spoke with John Campas at Grado who said their carts are designed for tonearms with 10-15 grams of effective mass - my Thorens is 7.5g. He said all I have to do is put 3-5g of playdoh or putty in the headshell to get it in range. That sounded questionable as wouldn't a heavier cartridge accomplish the same thing??

Even so, Grados are quite a bit more compliant than nearly all MCs due to being a MM design, so this may be my best bet. A V15 may be the most trackable/compliant but I doubt the sound would be anywhere near a Grado Reference league.

So I guess my question becomes "are there any other high compliance MMs out there that sound truly Great?". Or: "My tonearm might not bring out 100% of a good $1K cartridge, but if I pay just some attention to compliance will it sound significantly better than my Ortofon?" 1700 mentions Clearaudio and Goldring I'll look into.

Basement, your take on my situation is on-the-mark: but it would be a whole lot easier to get a used Rega25 than to change my tonearm on the integrated Thorens, thus giving me modern materials and a proper arm and cart selection, losing me the semi-auto operation nobody seems to deem worthwhile anymore, for the extra $5 it would cost.

Finally, Bob_b et al, is there any reason to go with the 5mV Grado vs the 0.5mV Grado if I have a clean 60dB gain available? Dynamics, increased RF pickup, adj loading for a MC stage applied to a supposedly load-insensitive MM, resale value?? So many options, so little money...

Thanks for all your inputs.

Hi Scott - you guys are more knowledgable about these compatibility issues than I am; I'll gladly contribute within my experience though.
Grado is a hybrid design; not moving coil, but not moving magnet either. Grado calls them a moving iron, or variable reluctance design. Both the coils & the magnets are fixed within the cartridge body, the cantiliever actually moves around a very low mass (thus high compliant) piece of ferrous metal (iron) which disturbs the magnetic field between the magnets & the coils, thus producing audio output. If Grado's proposal to increase effective mass of the arm seems like a valid approach, then I would use the low output version of whatever cartridge model you chose. You have the required gain, so why not go with the sonically superior low-output version (fewer coil windings = superior performance). I believe that you would also be less prone to hum & noise pickup with fewer coil windings vs. more windings.
Regarding fixed VTA, try to set up the spacers such that the cart body is parallel to the record surface, or perhaps just slightly negative.

Final update: bought the Grado reference.

Got it here for $495, the 5mv version. Figured if it works well I could always sell it for the 0.5mV later. Using the Thorens alignment template on my 2nd tonearm wand, was able to get VTA, azimuth, zenith and overhang all near-perfect on 1st try. Increnmental sonic improvements across the board yield overall better sound, though maybe not as much as I'd expect over a 22yo cart I paid $55 new for: HF detail, soundstaging and air, richer mids, everything more 'delicately' rendered. No doubt the arm/tt are keeping the cart from sounding its very best, but it's as good as it can be until/if I implement the 'strange tonearm tweak' thread on this forum.

The one thing I do notice that seems at odds with expectations is 1) lower bass response ( 10X the surface infrasonics vs the Ortofon esp on the outer edge of the LP, causing startling amounts of woofer pump and my watt meters showing a lot of wasted power. If #1 is due to the light tonearm moving laterally with in-phase recorded bass info with a less-compliant cart, then shouldn't #2 also be reduced for the same reason, despite it being out-of-phase vertical motion? Or does the Grado just have more vertical mechanical output below the audioband?

This is LP surface infrasonics, not airborne or structural, as proven by full gain with the stylus on a stationary record shows no feedback or excitation even jumping on the floor. And a function of LP ripples, seemingly not the resonance falling far outside the 8-12Hz range, just a much higher amplitude there. VTF 1.5 vs 1.8g no diff. VTA set just the slightest negative. And my tonearm mass isn't that far out of Grado spec. The tonearm is a 2-tube composite designed to cancel standing waves and resonances. I have an outboard processor with an infrasonic filter that cleans this all up, but I'm still curious why I lose audio bass and gain infrasonics... Bob_B, how much woofer pump do you get?

Thanks to all for your past advice.

Scott I don't really know because my woofers are horn loaded & invisible unless the cabinets are opened. But the power meters don't move mcu unless I'm blasting of course.

Sdecker, congratulations on your uprade.
The conditions you describe as well as the sound definitely indicate to me that you are suffering from not enough mass with your tonearm. I tried to find a picture of your arm but was unsuccessful, but perhaps I can share some tweaks with you that I have used in the past, but first, I'll try to explain your objective(s).
The complience is of corse, the stiffness of the suspension of the cartridge. You can substitute 'weight' for mass for concerns of the arm. The 'weight', if you will, affects the inertia of the arm, as it resist movement.
Every combination of complience and mass produces a resonent frequency that is the natural resonence of that combination. If it falls in the audioband, every time that frequency is produced it will vibrate in sympathy. The result in the range here is masking of those particular frequencies. You want to make the arm heavy enough to drop that frequency out of the audioband.
You can do it by adding weight right at the cartridge. As you move back toward the pivot, you will have to add more weight to equal the inertia of weight added at the headshell. Also, the more weight you add at the headshell, the more weight you need for counterweight.
electrical tape is a good substitute for armwrap. You can wrap it around like some commercailly avaivable do, or you can run strips straight with the tube. If you put it on without tension, or too much tension, it will stay put. This will help damp the arm from ringing.
You could also stuff the armtube. I have used a drinking straw and cotton on both the audioquest and immedia with good results. The straw is to isolate the wire from being smashed against the armtube and/or stuffing, which could be an undesireable dialectric for the wire. You could do variations, I have found cotton to work the best. Many tonearms just use packing foam, you could try that without a straw.
If your arm has a separate tailpiece (the part the counterweight slides on) it may be hollow. If it is hollow, you could stuff that.
If you can get a hold of some lead sheathing, with is available from some commercail construction suppliers, that could be used for a variety of things. it can be cut to any size, and is less than 1/16" thick, and quite heavy and flexable. I have the counterweight of my rega wrapped with it, so it is half lead. It is just taped tightly on, and it works well.
If you go to the hardware store, you could find some collers that have an allen screw in them, sort of like the fancy counterwieghts for rega's, just not as heavy, but this would be a cheap, fast way of increasing the couterwieght. Find them at ace.
I hope at least some of these help. It sounds like you already got into the thread of twl's tonearm tweak, "strange tonearm treak long". If you get your resonence down closer to where you want it, you could try some variations on some of the different explanations of why it works so well. If you were to to some similar or separete variations of twl's tweak on your arm, you could not only possibly improve your arm but help in explaining or proving the theories behind it.