Ortofon SPU with 12 inch Jelco arm?

Ok, i owned ZYX Premium 4D and ZYX Airy III models and do not regret than i sold both SPU Classic MKII and even rare SPU Spirit LTD with elliptical profile, the Royal with Replican 100 is better than both of them and perfect for vintage vinyl. I do not have ZYX anymore, i realized it was not my type of the cartridges. But my champ in low compliance design is Fidelity-Research FR-7f now and Fidelity-Research PMC3 

If you think the SPU is great for old records then it’s as "great" as many other generic cartridges (MC or MM), nothing special for old records IMO. But from the stylus profile point of view the benefit of playing old vinyl with Shibata (Line Contact) stylus is obvious because the groove walls on old vinyl are in better condition and only Line Contact can touch these virgin part of the groove walls, the rest of the groove walls on old vinyl (from the 50s, 60s, 70s) is most likely worn by cheap conical tip from that old era. And tonal balance of the cartridge can’t help you in this aspect, unfortunately. It’s all about how to extract the music from the vinyl groove and stylus is responsible for that. The situation is different with new records, maybe some people just like the oldschool sound of that SPU cartridges, but some people are happy even with 78rpm records. It has nothing to do with the sound quality, just personal preferences.

For me the stylus profile does metter.

Chakster, I think you may be correct.
Some of us like detailed, analytical but musical presentation. Others like warm romantic midrange strong "old school" sound. I enjoy detail but musical myself but having a second choice in a romantic warm colored way would be fun as well.
Racedoc, thank you very much for sharing your personal experiences that is exactly the information I was asking.

That’s what the dealers tells to their customers when selling the SPU Classics, i was hooked, but i didn’t worked out for me. The terms "warm and musical" sounds much better in my mind, but in reality i would not call the sound of SPU Classics "musical", i would call it boring in my tube system. But it is always important to try something different in comparison. I don't think we have many SPU followers here on audiogon, people are championing different cartridges, at least it was not easy for me to find anything about SPU on here when i was looking for it. I think the design of the Miyajima (Cross Coil) is an advantage over the oldschool SPU, but the Miyajima belongs to the group of "warm and musical" cartridges too, probably much better than SPU. The Fidelity-Research FR-7f (Air Core Coil) is also unique design and it's pure majic.  

Добрый день chakster,

maybe one reason for our different thought is, that you use
tubes in your system and my rig is purely silicone based ;-)

I had the case that an older and worn record sounded better with
a sharp stylus cartridge. But it was more an exception than the
rule looking only for the stylus. The vice versa case happened as
often.

But it seems we have some parallels as well. I sold my ZYX cartridges
as well and today my favourite carts are a DS Audio and a SPU Synergy.