Cartridges that get strings right?

@pingvin

Enjoying the responses which have devolved into the catchall "Everything matters!" ?  Ha. Of course this categorical answer is correct and could be used to reply to 99% of the questions posed on here, but it does little to help you in trying to capture a certain sonic attribute by tweaking the cartridge part of the "Everything Matters" equation.  In a perfect world we could go through every aspect of your system from AC power to how clean your records are to see which impacts the realism you seek from strings but that's not viable of course.    Instead of providing anecdotal findings on cartridges that have worked well for others, you get "schooled" on why you're not even approaching the issue correctly.  Oh well.

System matters but if you are looking for an "accurate" cartridge that will produce an uncolored sound with tons of detail I would look at the Ortofon Cadenza Blue. I have personal experience with it and can say it is a great cartridge for classical music.  

I agree that “everything matters”. HOWEVER, in my experience the sound of recorded strings, massed strings and violins in particular, pose unique challenges for phono cartridges. The sound of the violin is unusually rich in harmonic content. When a violin string is bowed, many of the fundamental tone’s harmonics are excited simultaneously. The sound of many violins playing together seems to make it very difficult for most phono cartridges to track properly and without breakup or audible strain.

I am not sure what exactly the OP means by “get it right” since a cartridge that tracks well can still have an unnatural tonal balance which would make the resulting string sound not “right”. Conversely, a cartridge can have great innate tonal balance and have problems with tracking and audible breakup. Any other component in the audio system can also have tonal balance problems and make the resulting string sound not “right” and is why “everything matters”. But, I would say that if correct string sound is a priority, exceptional tracking ability is a good place to start in choosing a cartridge. Of course, the tonearm and its synergy with any given cartridge will affect tracking and why, once again “everything matters”. Having said all that, of all the cartridges that I have owned, for sheer tracking ability the Shure’s are hard to beat; but I generally don’t like their tonal character. MC’s with highish compliance (for MC’s) , like the van den Hul’s that I have owned have offered the best balance between innate tracking ability and tonal balance for realistic string sound.

Yes delivering the details of massed strings in a good recording is a big time hifi performance test, one of the toughest!  So much going on harmonically at any particular time with massed strings!

I have a Denon DL103R cart on Linn Basik tonearm on Linn Axis table to Electrocompaniet step up transformer to Audio Research sp16 pre-amp with phono stage. This setup does the job. Took some work and time to get there testing with high quality recordings containing massed strings but worth every minute and dollar to get there.