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Moving Iron Carts or stick with LOMC

I've been thinking off adding as second arm to my table ( Garrard 301 as seen in my system pictures) the second arm will be for my High compliance VDH Cart so I'll have an open spot on my Jelco 750L 12" tone arm. SO I'm thinking of trying out a moving iron (MI) cart. 

Phono stage is Gold Note PH 10 so all the settings I will ever need for just about any cart. 

 I'm looking for recommendations for carts in the $500-$2000 range as I know little about MI carts as far as owning one or hearing one. I suppose the big question is, is it worth trying, i'm sure there will be people on both sides, but what got me interested was a write up about the Grado reference v2 MI cart and I like how they described the sound as midrange centric, I have all the detail I need on my VDH I'm looking for a little more romance so to speak with my second cart. 

What stylus types work best on MI carts? I've always like a VDH stylus and found the conical a little dead sounding (Denon 103 for example). 

As for Vintage I have no issues with going older lets keep this in the easily obtainable realm though. 

Grado reference v2 at $1500 and the Soundsmith Carmen Mk2 $1000 ( on sale right now for $700) are two that caught my eye so far both have interesting price and reviews. 

Well of course I could be going totally down the wrong path so feel free to knock me back on track if that's what I need. 

Glen (one N) 

128x128glennewdick
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
I am waiting to try out an Astatic MF100 on my 401.
Brand new NOS cart.

Should be interesting.
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
The question seems to be reduced to one quality or property
of carts: moving mass. I own ADC 26 with , I assume , the
lowest moving mass of all carts which I know. There must be
some more ''arguments'' reg. carts quality. I prefer my Allearts
MC2, FR-7fz, Ikeda's Rex (cantileverless kind) , Miyabi Standard,
Benz LP s (16 g kind) and some other MC kinds to ADC 26.
My preference is , of course, not an ''hard argument'' but it
may induce more thinking about the questions we ask. There are
no right answers to wrong questions I think.

teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
I like book replies. I should since I issue them all the time. Some of us prefer to read, it’s helps flesh out the discussion. The idea of communication in the written form implies writing (and lots of it), does it not?

IMO, MI carts are very slightly in the direction of granular, buzzy, metallic. It’s the iron. The hysteresis under ac loading makes it so. It’s why we don’t have iron wire for interconnects. They head in the opposite direction of why you went to LOMC.
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
There are some very interesting low impedance low output MM cartridges made by Pickering, those cartridges must be used with headamp or MC phono stage. I've managed to buy very rare luxury Pickering XLZ-4500s and XLZ-7500s, both with Stereohedron styli.  Both are MM with extremely low output!   
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
That sounds like an MM I would actually go for....
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