Which cart works with Ortofon AS309S 12inch arm

Arm mass for AS-309S is 3.5-4g without headshell.

The Ortofon 2M Black might be too compliant for this arm... If you use a really light headshell (6-7g or less) you might get away with it.

Not sure about the Shelter because the compliance ratings aren't easy to come by.

Bottom line, this is an arm best suited for the stiffer variety of moving coil cartridges, including SPUs. Cadenza and Kontrapunkt series should work fine here also.

Full disclosure, I work for the manufacturer. Just wanted to help!

Effective mass of 3.5-4 grams without headshell makes absolutely no sense to me on this arm but I could be wrong.

If I am not mistaken, Jelco makes these arms for Ortofon and the 9" version of the arm most closely resembling the 309S with Jelco's stock headshell (12 grams) is 20 grams. Add another 3" of arm tube and I cannot see how this arm would not have an effective mass with the stock Jelco headshell of much less than 23-24 grams and even more with the SPU headshell.

As I say, I could be wrong.

Hi Fld!!! I have a Raven One with the Ortofon arm and use a Dynavector 20X HO cart. This was set up by Jeff at Highwater Sound, and Ive been very happy with it. Very good but not "incredible" soundstaging, excellent imaging, extremely quiet, nice midrange and good bass. As someone else wrote in one of the threads, system synergy comes into play here, and maybe the reason I like the sound I'm getting is the fleshed-out sound of the phono section of my modded Conrad Johnson PV-5 preamp (tubes) combined with the solid state bass and general clarity of my Belles 350A amp. I'm sure the Dynacector would work for you, but as they say, there are many paths to Nirvana.--Mrmitch

Thank you Mrmitch...

The dynamic compliance of AT33PTG as stated is ：10×10－6cm/dyne（100Hz）. Using this cart with your AS-309S, compliance should not be the major issue.

For highly rigid TT and Ortofon arms, some more attentions need to be paid to the supporting platform which helps eliminate harmful low frequency resonance as much as possible during loud passages. It may take some time to tweak according to your taste and preference. You may look for clean, high transparency, tight bass but NOT super warm, tubey but booming bass, soft tender extra sweet sounding...pls correct me if I am wrong. BTW, what phono amp will your cart be hooked up with?

IME, AS-309s is "relatively neutral" when comparing to other popular models on the markets, you gonna hear more sonic signatures from your cart and phono amp. The basic approach to begin with AS-309s is to find a high quality cart(I would prefer LOMCs in your system) according to the recommended total cart weight with headshell(i.e.18-25g for standard counterweight, 26-38g for optional one).

I like some carts made by Shelter, Ortofon, Dynavector, ZYX but unfortunately they are not on your list.

Good luck and VBR
Dan