After the disaster with the Ortofon I had a old Grado Black hanging around which I had never used for years . Mounted it on my turntable . It sounded very good . To my ears and taste , liked it better then the Nagaoka MP110 .
If you already have Grado BLACK then all you need is a brand new stylus from the higher model if you want upgrade the sound. With your Grado Black you can use Grado 8MZ or TXZ stylus (under $400 I believe, the XTZ is the best stylus in this series ever). Stay with Grado, with a brand new stylus it will be much better than Black. This is Moving Iron cartridge, keep using it. You have to understand that generator in Glack,Gold etc ... is the same, the different is stylus. I already asked Grado about it few years ago.
Been searching and shopping and have nailed down my options to these.
Denon DL 103R and DL 110
Audio Technica OC9 cartridge line
Ortofon Quintet Red
Grado Red3 Grado Gold3 and New Grado Timbre ....
I can go up to 400 dollars
My system is comprised of
Project 1expression2 modified ,
If you want an MC then maybe Audio-Technica, but if you have Grado Black you have to change the stylus only to make it equal to the Gold and with 8MZ or XTZ stylus is will be better than Gold.
Denon 103 is low compliance and not for your tonearm! It has a conical tip with short life-span, do not buy it!
When you’re buying MC cartridge make sure to understand who will re-tip it and how much it will cost, with conical or elliptical profile you have only 300-600 hrs before the diamond must be replaced.
With Grado you can simply buy a brand new stylus and install it yourself.