Whats on your turntable tonight?

Thanks guys.  I hope for good things.

I agree with Brian, the mono cartridge with a conical stylus would better serve mono records.  At the most, an elliptical stylus.  I could be wrong, of course.

My longer-term plan is for a second tonearm, one with a removable headshell.  By that I can easily change between a mono cartridge and some other MC or MM cartridge.  The main tonearm would remain as the premier choice and with the premium cartridge.  But first, I need to get the turntable that supports two tonearms.  That along with speakers are the big plans for early 2022.  Fun hobby and I love great music and excellent high fidelity.  But man, this can get expensive!

Then again, Jim's thought makes even more sense.  The untouched groove area is a nice surface for a deeper tracking stylus.

Oh, this hobby...er, rabbit hole!

Fritz Reiner conducts Haydn - Symphony No. 101 In D ("Clock") & Symphony No. 95 In C Minor. Fritz Reiner And His Orchestra. RCA Victor Red Seal 1964. 

Reiner’s last recording, two months before his death.

Yes, this brings back memories of all the reading of mono, mono carts, mono switches et. al. before I made the leap.

Many camps with various beliefs. One thing to keep in mind, there is no vertical information in a mono groove, only horizontal (sides). Unlike a stereo groove where there is info both horizontal and vertical within the groove. Thus, theoretically, if you have a very clean nice period mono LP, all the info is there no matter how high or deep the stylus goes.

But yes, if you have an abused mono LP that was played many many times with a worn out conical stylus, a new fine line stylus would in theory go deeper into (below) the ‘damaged’ grooves, and sound better.

No doubt though, I would say today, most all the carts, even the Ortofon 2M Mono (with a spherical stylus) would have been better than most all carts available when these old albums were released. But I’m sure some would disagree with that too 😁

Neil Young / Time fades away