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Moving coil cartridge advice needed

A friend recently acquired a VPI Aries turnable with JMW Memorial arm and asked my advice on a good but not outrageous MC cartridge, say around $1,000.

He has a phono pre that will support the lowest output cartridges. He listens to a broad range of popular music, although I've gotten him sampling some jazz and classical lately. Accuracy in soundstaging and transients, deep well controlled bass and good tracking are important.

Ones which came to my mind - Benz Micro (Ref 2 silver, L2, Glider L2), Clearaudio Sigma Wood, Dynavector Karat 17D2 Mk II, Lyra Lydian Beta and Shelter 501. I've only heard the Dynavector personally (excellant cartridge, IMHO). Read that the Benz's are very "warm", which if true, may not be optimal given his listening tastes. Comments on these or
other recommendations most appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Doug
grandpad
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
i myself have a helikon cart and i believe that this cart is the closest match to koetsu wood. btw it's possible to get it for a-bit higher than 1k from hong kong but not immedia wil void the warranty(whattahell! there still almost none if you breake it you break it -- that's the bottom line).
rwd
695 posts
 
Hi all...I am no techno person but I can respond that I have an Aries and 10.5 with a Lyra Helikon and a Benz Micro Med MC. (I have two arm tubes). The Helikon is very comfortable in the are and sounds quite good! When I first got the table and amr and cartridge, I was experiencing some lead-in groove skips...I assume it was the anti skate. After some playing around with the are tube cable....(that controls the anti skate) all was well.

All I can say, it is a marvelous match......super sound, BUT the Helikon does take some time (100 hrs?) to break in....as a mater of fact it still is.
extremephono
123 posts
 
The JMW and VPI tend to be warm, so don't pair with warmer cartridge like Benz. With Lyra, they tend to be neutral. And with Van den hul, you get very good complimentry qualities, being fast and airy.

The Frog, especially the one with gold coil is a very good cartridge, and gives up very little from the Colibri/Beauty series. You can also 'nude' the Frong (voiding the warranty), and it will look like a Colibri/Beauty.
jfrech's avatar
jfrech
1,816 posts
 
I tried the Lydian Beta with a wilson benech full circle and act.5 unipivot arm. Fiddled with it forever, couldn't figure out the sound. Tried the cart. on a friends Rega p25 with rb600 and wow. I kept the cartrige, got rid of the table.

So, I'll back TWL up on nixing the Lyra on that arm.

BTW, I love my Lyra Lydian B and want to move up to the Helikon or Titan...so, I'm not ditching Lyra...just a system matching comment from my experience...
grandpad OP
151 posts
 
Twl, you nailed an issue that I should have mentioned and forgot. I haven't seen my friends VPI/JMW setup yet, and have no experience with either. Thanks for picking up my oversight and your lucid explanation of its implications.

Interestingly, I find the Helikon SL works well in my Graham 2.2 (which has anti-skate) w/Oracle V so perhaps the 12cu treads the margin.

My Koetsu Urushi & Onyx (medium-low compliance) did not mate well with the Graham, and a Shelter 901 was a complete miss-match, supporting Twl's position. All 3 work fine in a SME V.

Thanks for everyone's help - any more ideas?
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