Which Mono Cartridge at around $1,300.00?

The AT 33 ocassionaly shows up on J&R for $400; I use one myself. Both high gain phono stages and SUTs can work well; Bob's Devices SUT is quite reasonable and sounds very good. Which is better? I have no idea; my Basis Exclusive and Naim Superline are high gain MC only; I did try turning the Basis gain down all the way and using the SUT but this did not work well. On the other hand the SUT works well with MM phono stages. The Basis Exclusive offers up to 72 db of gain; even if the smaller Basis offers less it should work with almost any MC; Basis makes good phono stages.

I concur, I like my Mini Basis and what's it has done so far. ASR makes a nice amplifier also. I'll look at the Audio Technica 33 but it doesn't seem as though 2nd hand mono cartridges present themselves whenever I'm looking. I just take it for granted that they're somewhat of a rare breed to begin with. Being candid, I don't want to spend money on a SUT. I'd first take that money and put a tube circuit board in my MD 90 tuner.

I have two mono MC cartridges–Denon DL102and Ortofon SPU mono–and both have sufficient output for any normal MM phono stage. Of the two, I find the Ortofon has a naturalness that the Denon can't quite match, but the Denon is cheaper and satisfying in it's own right. And the Denon can be mounted on your Thorens arm, and the Ortofon cannot unless you decouple it from its headshell.

Decouple the cartridge you say, yikes! I do have a friend who worked with a McIntosh dealer back in the day who has all kinds of weird stories concerning things like splitting head shells, attaching cartridges with soldered pot metal, running tonearm wire along the top of the tonearm, ... Anyway, things I have no knowledge or familiarity with.

05-01-12: Lewm
The factors that determine the need for a SUT are (i) cartridge signal voltage output, and (2) phono stage gain. Period. If you have enough of (1) and (2), you don't need a SUT.

Lew, as I'm sure you realize but others may not, phono stage signal-to-noise ratio is also a factor. I doubt that would be an issue with the ASR Mini Basis Exclusive, but it very well could be with some phono stages. All gains of 60 db, for example, are not created equal, and different 60 db phono stages will produce differing amounts of background hiss. And a 60 db gain stage will sometimes be significantly more noisy than a 20 db SUT used with a 40 db gain stage.

Further complicating matters is the fact that s/n ratio specifications from different manufacturers often can't be compared directly, because they may be based on different reference levels and different frequency weightings, with those levels and weightings not even being indicated in many cases.

As I say, that is most likely not an issue for the OP, but the references to having adequate gain that are frequently seen in discussions of LOMC's strike me as only telling part of the story, and as being potentially misleading.

Best regards,
-- Al