What defines a high compliance cartridge vs low

Stanwal, Viridian,
Thank you both. this is a long reply It boils down to this.
Is the Music Hall MMF-5 packaged arm/cartride poorly thought out or just poor stuff?
I hope and think that the cartridges that came with my tables both on the low end of "high end". Were both matched well with it's tone arm. But there is a problem.
One is a Music Hall MMF-5 with the Goldring MM cartridge 1042 . It doesn't sound even remotely as fantastic as as my other table. The phono for the MMF-5 is a lttle known but reportedly very good Australian RedGum am SS with dips which I set by sound not by impedance load issue. it should be the best sounding correct?? Then onto a Jadis DA-60 with rolled rubes. It drives VS VR2s. The room is well damped and sounds good with othert sources digital linear 120 CD player and an analog Sansui TU 717 tuner or a refurbed Sherwood all tube S-3000. There appears to be little flexibility except changing carts i.e. It has no arm board.
The second is a standard VPI package. It is a Scout That was set up in the factory and slightly adjusted by the dealer . It has JMW 9 arm with Dynevector 20X HO into Graham Slee Graham Amp 2SE into a upgraded AE-3 by AES then into a pair of Opera Consonance Cyber 800 monoblocks driving JM Focal Electra 936s. Tweaked with excellent tubes etc. I left out cabling intentionally.
The sound is absolutley stupendous to me utterly fabulous, without using audio descriptors it is Nirvana and see no real need to upgrade this system except for minor tweaks.
The room is big and less well damped.
So what can I do about Music Halls selection of arm and cartridge. It is quote a musical sound which is pleasant but I will confess my sins I like the the "wow" or damn that sounds good factor. Is that cart a POS? I know it costs about a quarter of the VPI. What compliance for the replacement would give me detail clarity and wow. The rest of the gear as you see is fairly good stuff.
The tubes alone are very special and an investment, an Octet or GL reissue kt-88s 3 12au7s which are 7316s 1960,
and a pair of 12ax 7 rolled to triple mica blackplate Sylvania 5751s. All tested by me and are good except the Octect whic came from Jim McShane.

Virian,
The mods were done for me by my friend Vytas Viesulas. He is the engineer behind. The $15,000 Veloce Battery power preamp and he is now working with an actual employee.
You can try to reach him through their website. He patterned the mod to make it a " DJH Signature" except with SS rectification I think.
The mods were mainly expensive Blackgates and Mundorf caps, and better fast acting slow recovery Hexfreds.
He romved an extra unused circuit (wire that accomplished nothing) and used audiophile wire through out.
The strangest thing was that we were both afraid it would change the great sound. When he came to deliver it. The outcome was that it's remarkable sonics were just as good even without breakin. I can't say it was better than the great preamp before mods. How do make a great thing better.
I am truly surprised that they stopped making them. They get bought in one day. If you pony up $1200 Upscale Audio has some souped up brand new ones.
The critical point with this pre is that it needs good 6SN7s which is actually why I bought it. I wanted a pre that used 6SN7s because I had a large collection. It is in the gain stage, sp I can hear the drifferences in their sound. Even though I had tubes that tested NOS or ANOS, I found that many were quite microphonic or noisy.
If you buy yours from Kevin Deal at Upscale, he also has quite a large collection of tested tubes for importantly microphonics.
I own many 6SN7s and the winner is.... the Brimar 6SN7GTY CV1988. The sad new is I couldn't make up . So I chose some Metal based Sylvania 6SN7Ws. Kevin may have the commercial version of it which I also have and is as good or better but they are NIB and really NOS.
I don't want to use them up until I can get another pair. They have the Chrome about 1/2 to 2/3 down "the Chrome Dome." It is a very early version marked as a 6SN7 not even GT ans Sylvania on the black base.
I bought my AE-3 used for $350, the tubes are valued for more. I think original was $500 or so. It was 4-5 years old and I paid 70% and was happy to get it.
Good luck
Disclamer As always I get nothing from any merchant I mention No other conflict of interest

Looking at the specs for the Redgum phono stage,I personally think that the R.I.A.A curve is not really flat(+/- 0.5) and going down to 10Hz might be too sensitive at the lower end of the scale for M.M.Do they the roll-off at 35Khz? The competing Project S.E Phono looks better on paper,much flatter R.I.A.A( no more than 0.3dB fluctuation all up across 20Hz to 20Khz))with impedance adjustment as well.I think the phono stage is the issue given they sell the table with the Goldring M.M.

Interesting figures above. FWIW; Anything under 10g is considered LOW MASS, and if a cartridge had a compliance of 50; it would be considered Stratospheric(high compliance STARTS at 20, and the charts only go to 50). I don't know about, "the Old Days", but none of the figures have changed since 1980. Here's a site that gives the formulas you need, and some pertinent info: ( http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/tonearmcartridge.html ) and another, that you may find useful: ( http://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge_database.php?m=Denon&t=mc&mod=103d&sort=1&Search=Search&sty=&ovlo=&ovhi=&can=&dclo=&dchi=&stid=&masslo=&masshi=¬es=&prlo=&prhi= ) Another point that many miss: Compliance varies with frequency. Another helpful site: ( http://www.resfreq.com/resonancecalculator.html )