Mono cartridge recommendation

Thanks for the replies.

I don’t own any mono reissues. I have various classical, jazz and early rock monos. I do want to stick to my <$1k budget for now until I decide on a final tonearm for the new table. I will probably be looking to purchase a new arm early next year.

Now I’m looking at a few specific cartridges.

Hana SL MC Mono Shibata stylus. I don’t know if this is a true mono cart or just a strapped stereo. I’m researching it, but does anybody know more?

Ortofon MC Quintet Mono Nude Elliptical stylus. I’m pretty sure this is a true mono cartridge.

Ortofon 2M Mono (several stylus profiles). I’m also pretty sure this is a true mono cartridge. I would be leaning towards the microline version, but replaceable stylus assemblies would allow for both spherical and microline.

AT33MONO Conical < 1mil stylus. This is defiantly true mono.

If anyone has any specific experience with these, I’d like to hear from you. I am looking for a cart that tends towards neutral if possible.

Thanks again.

Maybe I'm wrong,  I would like to hear from people who use advanced styli playing old jazz mono lps from the 40's, 50's.

Are these just for pristine condition monos from the 60's?

My instinct: a modern advanced stylus: shibata, sas, microline, .... is not advisable, because they are designed for modern groove widths, they go WAY down in the grooves, old or new, so much more opportunity to add noise to the 'easy to extract' mono info.

From my understanding, cutting heads are v shaped, and as such, pretty much any stylus shouldn't "scrape the bottom".  I can see an advantage to having the stylus ride lower in the groove, it should avoid areas where conical styli would have worn and possibly even below where some surface scratches might cause noise.

Right, the cutter is a "V" with straight sides. The various stylus shapes are all attempts to find the best compromise for tracing this groove. A "V" identical to the cutter head won't be best because if it is even slightly off in VTA it will miss a huge amount of detail. But even if VTA is perfect then it will be dragging along the whole groove wall, sapping drive from dynamics, and any dirt at all anywhere along the groove will be tracked, exaggerating noise and wear.  

All the different stylus profiles are trying to avoid these problems. Sometimes you might have one that is shaped and sized to run deeper down in the groove where it might avoid wear from larger ones. But this is a side effect not a goal and not likely to work anyway. Just as likely there is crud down there as the deepest crevice is always hardest to clean. Yet another example of forest for the trees.  

The real advantage in terms of noise is greater vibration control. The biggest contributor to this is simply to reduce moving mass. This is the real reason the expensive MC are better than the cheaper ones and MM. This is why Soundsmith with their MI designs are so good. This is why Strain Gauge reigns supreme. The lower the moving mass the less whipping around in the groove, the better the tracing and the lower the noise. Far bigger factor than stylus shape.   

In any event there is simply no way to separate the two. A phono cartridge is quiet, or not. Tracks well, or not. Sounds good, or not. Whatever it does is the sum of all the various parts involved.   

@millercarbon   
meh