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Grado Stylus Upgrade

I currently am using a Grado Gold cartridge from the Prestige line. The cartridge was bought new about a year ago and has not seen heavy use. Basically, still like new. Although the Gold is not anywhere near the top of Grado's line of cartridges it is still decent with my system. I have read numerous forums and almost all Grado users recommend upgrading the standard Gold stylus to the 8MZ stylus for superior performance. That stylus goes for $150 which is more than half of what the Gold cartridge with standard stylus costs. I am not interested in a complete cartridge upgrade at this time but am curious if the 8MZ stylus upgrade is worth the expense? I guess that any users that have this cartridge and have done the stylus upgrade consider it a worthwhile upgrade.
  
jrpnde
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
.Thanks for your input as well. From what I've read is that the XTZ cartridge has been out of production for a while. Besides, if I would
spend $450+ on just the stylus, for the same money why wouldn't I just upgrade the entire cartridge??

You're right, for $450 you can find a good cartridge, but not the Joseph Grado Signature XTZ which is nowadays impossible to find and the cost would be at least $800+ But i saw the XTZ styli available - they are the best Grado ever made for that type of cartridges. 

I have Joe Grado Signature XTZ and you can seach info on audiogon about this beauty, in the 80s the price was $750 and it was a flagship model, amazing cartridge, mainly because of the XTZ stylus. 

So it's up to you, the cheapest styli for Grado is Black or DJ100i, so you can go lower if you want. 
samuelb
9 posts
 
Get into the Woods to improve over the Prestige line.  I have a Grado Gold and went to Reference platinum and the result was very good.  The Platinum 2 is now out and at $350 is audibly better than the current Prestige gold.  There is of course the drawback ..... non replaceable stylus!

Yours,

Sam
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
The Grado 8MZ signature cartridge is sweet. I have one mounted on a Victor 750 tonearm & it's about the best (overall) I've had in my system. 
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
My mistake the arm is a Victor UA-7045. Not sure where the 750 came from... 
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
It's a great tonearm and i've been using my Grado Signature XTZ on Victor UA-7045 too. 
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