Cartridges that get strings right?

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.

Dear @pigvin : Get it right for whom?. You can be sure that almost each audiophile has his own " get it rigth " in almost any udio subject.

Yes, like you as we attend more and more often to MUSIC live events s we will know better about that " get it rigth ".

Of course tht everything is important in the room/system but the room/system only can reproduce what the cartridge pick-up or what the lasser pick up in a CDP.

So I agree with @frogman : cartridge tracking abilities is the main issue along the cartridge quality motor levels and agree with him too that van den Hul cartridges like the Colibri ( low output. ) is really good in any sense and a precise answer to your question.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Agreed with others.   Massed strings seems one of the biggest "fall-down" points I experience in audio reproduction.  They so easily can sound synthetic, or like digital samples rather than having that delicate combination of bow-on-string vividness and texture, yet with a relaxed sweetnees, and also being appropriately rich sounding, rather than the thin, shrill tone strings are often reduced to when playing in the higher registers.
As it happens, the combo of my Transrotor turntable with a Benz Micro Ebony L cartridge, with my little Spendor S3/5 speakers, finally give me that lushious "strings sound beautiful...like strings!" sensation.  I've been luxuriating in any track that has strings ever since using this combo.

Further following on to Frogman's and Raul's posts, because of the complexity of the sonic signature of even a single violin, let alone a massed array of them, the aural sensation produced in a "live" hall may at times exceed the capacity of music reproduction technologies to convey it. If you attend a lot of live orchestral concerts, you may never be quite satisfied with what you can achieve at home with similar music. Ignorance is bliss, and all that.

Don't forget set-up. Until I got serious about set-up, my higher end Koetsu was rather disappointing - not that much better than a higher end MM.

But when I got serious - no - actually fanatical about set-up (like azimuth in 10 minute of arc increments, and a professional torque screwdriver), the Koetsu blossomed to an unexpected degree. Resolution and definition without tears.