Moving coil VS moving magnet/iron

chakster, these lectures are a great example of how you can bend data to support pretty much anything. Peter also conveniently forgets to mention that a mass at the fulcrum has significantly less effect than a mass at the very end of the lever. Thus the important spec to consider is the moving system's effective mass which include the stylus and cantilever in the mix and do not forget that the length of the cantilever is also a critical aspect of the cartridges mechanical behavior. He intentionally picks the worst example of a moving coil cartridge (picture included) to compare his design. There are many MC cartridges with resonance frequencies above 60 kHz. I also find it very interesting that he did not mention Joseph Grado who invented the stereo moving coil cartridge then switched to moving iron because he also thought it better. 
Peter's theory is that lower mass at the fulcrum leads to less stylus "jitter" which leads to less "noise." If he really wanted to impress me he would have digital samples of two identical turntables calibrated to the exact same output level one with his best cartridge and another with an Ortofon Anna Diamond playing the same blank groove. Would his cartridge produce less "noise?" I don't know. Neither does he or if he does he is not telling us or rather showing us. So, it all becomes just a marketing theory.
All this has nothing to do actually with how a cartridge sounds. This is a subjective judgement we all have to make for ourselves. It does seem most of us prefer moving coil cartridges. I had a Grado Statement and it was a wonderful sounding and tracking cartridge. It's only failing was that any electric field near it created noise. My understanding is that Soundsmith cartridges do not do this. I have not owned one so I can not say. The people who own them love them but it seems we always love the cartridge we have and again sound is subjective. There are some excellent MM cartridges out there but I feel comfortable in saying that the vast majority prefer MC cartridges because we have made the subjective assessment that they sound better. 

There are some excellent MM cartridges out there but I feel comfortable in saying that the vast majority prefer MC cartridges because we have made the subjective assessment that they sound better.

@mijostyn If they are better than why this thread was so popular and almost everyone was so impressed with "cartridge on the month" and we ended up having hundreds of them ?

I use both types, but i don’t think that entry level MC is any better than decent MM/MI. Add the cost of the MC phonostage or SUT, the cost of re-tip that some people like so much (even with third party parts). And taking in count what Peter Ledermann trying to explain i think MM/MI is a great choice.

I remember Garrott Brothers, guys retipped and refurbished many cartridges including Koetsu and Decca, their own cartridge was MM (p77) and they made MC series by request from a person who bankrolled the brand.

There are some nice LOMC too, normally at higher price, some of them are very rare, some new are terribly expensive up to 20k.

The industry always brainwash people to sell some new overpriced LOMC, but SoundSmith and Grado still around with fairly priced units. And those vintage MM are even better.

More lectures like that would be nice to watch.

Mijo, all that you say makes sense, yet I do find more excellent MM and MI cartridges than MC types, among the 20 or so cartridges in my collection. Still, I’m loathe to make a categorical judgement because there are many very high end MCs I have not heard. I receive great pleasure from much less costly MM and MI types.

No arguement lewm. It is a subjective matter but when it comes down to the scientific details I like to see a fair and even presentation. When I see a skewed one my BS antenna goes up.
I guess I am lucky. Currently my least expensive cartridge is the Ortofon Windfeld Ti. I have not evaluated cartridges at the lower end of the price range in a while. The Last one was the Ortofon 2M Black which I have to admit was excellent. There is certainly a point of extremely diminishing returns and that point (I'm guessing) is about $1K . I can certainly say that a Clearaudio Goldfinger is in no way $10,000 better than the Windfeld Ti.
It is all about what you can afford and what you like the sound of. The problem is that auditioning cartridges is difficult and many of us have bought cartridges we wind up not liking. 

I have on hand a Koetsu Urushi, ZYX UNiverse (1st version), Ortofon MC7500, Ortofon MC2000, Audio Technica ART7, and Dynavector 17D3.  The UNI, MC2000, and ART7 are my current favorite MCs, but they are not always preferred to my Acutex LPM320, B&O MMC1, Stanton 981LZS, or even my SS re-tipped Grace Ruby.  Some days I think it has as much to do with the state of my ears as to the cartridge, tonearm, turntable combo.