Cartridge recommendation for classical listening
Dear @rvpiano : I agree with shubert on the Nagaoka and inside your budget you can 't go wrong with the Nagaoka MP-500 and it's a hard cartridge to beats and a true chalange for any other today cartridge: http://v2.stereotimes.com/post/nagaoka-mp500-phono-cartridge/ Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS, R. |
Buy cartridges made by respected manufacturers who are/were in cartridge manufacturing business for a long time. There are not so many of them and you will see that most of them are Japanese companies. Don’t forget that cantilevers and diamonds for most of the cartridge manufacturers outside of Japan are still made in Japan. Many cartridges for turntable manufacturers are made in Japan, but they are selling them under their own European, US of British brands. Most of such cartridges can’t compete with pure Japanese high-end MM, MI or MC. And finally, if you like Moving Magnet or Moving Iron cartridges you have to understand that modern trend in High-End is LOMC, not Moving Magnet or Moving Iron, except maybe for SoundSmith who promote his MI design for years, and those Grado (also in business for a very long time). The giants of the industry designed MM cartridges in the 70’s and that was the time when MM was absolutely amazing, in my opinion it was a peak of Moving Magnet cartridges and it’s finished in the late 80’s when digital replaced analog slowly. The main music media is no longer vinyl, so why do you think those companies of today will produce exceptional MM (like they did when vinyl was the main format for everyone) ? We lose a lot of superb MM/MI cartridges and instead we have mediocre modern MM cartridges for affordable price or something unique for insane prices like this one for example (for many thousand dollars). Or those amazing vintage MM/MI that still available in NOS or MINT condition (i prefer this myself and i can only recommend the same to others). What i see today is the manufacturers of belt drive turntables jumped in with their strange cartridges, logically i can understand it, if they can sell turntables why not just sell them with "their own" cartridge, it’s so easy to promote it like that claiming their tonearm or turntables has the best sound with their own cartridge, but it’s a myth. Most of those cartridges are just cheap OEM from Audio-Technica and related big Japanese companies, just with a different name on it. Look for original design instead, for something special. Most of the new cartridge manufacturers design ONLY cartridges, not a turntables. If your turntable is Rega then you don’t have to buy a Rega cartridge for it, what is Rega in cartridge manufacturing business ? I remember Audio-Technica turntables (nothing special), but their cartridges are great. I remember Victor turntables, tonearms and cartridges and they are superb in everything. Technics no longer make any cartridges, but in the 70’s they designed everything on high-end level (turntables, tonearms and cartridges). I never used Grace tonearms, but Grace cartridges were superb. Nagaoka ? Only cartridges and accessories. Even Ortofon manufacturing cartridges, their tonearm are made in Japan by Jelco. Most of the small companies like Benz, Lyra, Koetsu, ZYX, Shelter ... never tried to make a turntables, just cartridges, Koetsu used to make a tonearms, but i think it was also Jelco OEM. EMT designed tonearms, cartridges and turntables Thorens ordered their carts from EMT There are very few (if ever) companies that can make tonearms, cartridges and turntables on the same level and Rega is not one of them. ClearAudio using Audio-Technica signal generators for their cartridges. ... etc |
