AT-ART9XI Cartridge - Reduced Compliance

a thicker straight stylus sounds better than a skinny bent one  :)

i love my art9 (original) and would not feel the need for more detail, i like its balance and slightly warm nature

then again i run a solid state phono stage.... ymmv

The XI will sound less warm, more transparent and neutral. Even in this video you can hear the difference.

I owned the 9 for a few years and loved it. works best with a low mass arm e.g. 9 grams or so. - your tonearm will work better with the XI.

as long as the XI keeps the squeaky clean colorful refinement of the '9, i could easily live with a more neutral sound.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=1QA1jw5Pj7Y&feature=emb_logo

avanti, thanks very much for the excellent A/B/C comparison video by Lp Gear.  As much as I've been reading about various cartridges, I was unaware of these videos - let alone one that gives us the three ART9 models.  Very helpful.  The SME V's stated effective mass is 10/11, just barely into mid mass range.  Cart/arm resonance with the ART9XI is in the high 9's, a more comforting number than the ART9's high 8's.  Good point about the combo!

noromance, cantilever is correct; I parroted "stylus" from the Lp Gear site.  My bad.

One of those two new versions, probably the lowest output one, seems to be an update (or an up-cost) of the ART7, in disguise.  I am very fond of the ART7.  I am not into or able to split hairs about minute differences among very similar cartridges, because there are so many uncontrolled variables involved in setting up a cartridge, starting with the tonearm and headshell and ending with the set-up procedure and how reproducibly it is done, any one of which could account for the nuances you do or don't hear.

BTW, a difference in compliance of 18 vs 15 would hardly make anything but a very tiny difference in the resonant frequency (Fres) calculation.  Fres varies inversely as the square root of the product of M*C, where C = compliance.  The square root of 18 is ~4.2; the square root of 15 is 3.9.