Best cartridge

Sumiko Pearl is nothing special, it seems like you don’t want to learn a bit about stylus profiles and cantilevers. You will not hear anything close to digital in terms of resolution if you will use donded elliptical stylus, it will be a muddy sound with rolled off bass and treble.

THIS IS THE WORST YOU CAN GET AND IT’S SUMIKO:

• bonded elliptical diamond stylus.
• alloy tube cantilever.

As stated in my earlier post here:

If you want a phono cartridge that can reproduce 10Hz - 50 000 Hz then you have to look ONLY for the cartridges with the most advanced stylus profile and high compliance! So the stylus must be something like MicroLine, MicroRidge, VdH, F.Gyger, Replicant-100, Line Contacct, Shibata, FineLine, Stereohedron ... just to give you some names. Cartridge compliance must be over 25cu @10Hz. Taking in count all these i believe you need an MM or MI cartridge with super lightweight cantilever like Titanium, Beryllium, Boron ... Those MM cartridges are not cheap (most likely over $500) !

You’d better mention the budget you are willing to spend on a phono cartridge.
If the budget is limited to $400 max then the best you can get is Stanton 881s (equal to Pickering XSV/3000) read this article.

But with double budget you can get much better MM with wider frequency response to compete with your digital.

@chakster
You are correct regarding the need to use advanced stylii, however your statement regarding compliance is an over-simplification.
I find your frequent reminders about the high level of technology and materials in best-of-class late 70s early 80s mm and mi carts useful btw.

Dear @dougeyjones : Yes, it's an up-grade to the Marantz. In the other side you own 50 LPs and starting the analog " trip " and you need to learn about and you can do it with that Pro-ject combo you bid it.

Latter on and according your self analog experiences you can know what you couild need as a second up-grade. Btw, Project and Sumiko are two very well regarded audio analog item names/manufacturers.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

@chakster
You are correct regarding the need to use advanced stylii, however your statement regarding compliance is an over-simplification.

But most MM are mid or high compliance by default. And most of the vintage MM are high compliance. However, modern MM are mid compliance or even low-ish like Nagaoka. A high compliance cartridge can stay in the groove even on seriously warped records.

I find your frequent reminders about the high level of technology and materials in best-of-class late 70s early 80s mm and mi carts useful btw.

thanks, I am more than happy with those carts.

It makes intuitive sense to me that cartridges from vinyls heyday would’ve been manufactured with higher QA standards than now, since Vinyl was the prevailing technology of the day. Even if modern manufacturing processes exceed those of yesteryear. 

Cool info.