Turntable upgrade recommendations: SME vs AMG vs Technics vs other

@rauliruegas, with dozens of mc’s in my possession I have promised myself ( and my wife): no more cartridges. So I will not hear the Verismo in my own system, but I will get a chance to hear it at a local retailer I’ve known for many years. I will bring my own A95 and Anna and we’ll do a comparison in a controlled environment. The system used will likely be SME 15 table with V tonearm, Gryphon amplification and Harbeth 40 series speakers. Or something else they carry on a similar level. If and when that happens I’ll report our findings.

@lewm, I might bring along the MC2000 (and perhaps the MC7500) as well for an interesting historic perspective. Comparing new and vintage cartridges in my own system over the years has confirmed the impression that no major sonic breakthroughs have been accomplished over the last 30-40 years of cartridge design. Not by Ortofon and not by others. But I’ll admit, prices did go through the roof.

edge, I own both of those, too. However, as a verifiable "cheapskate", I have never stepped up to purchase a modern cartridge that is acknowledged to be top rung. For that reason, I cannot claim to know how the current state of the art would compare to the MC2000 or even to my favorite MI type cartridges. I own some near SOTA cartridges but none that is really at the top. Raul does have such listening experiences, on the other hand. So I am not about to contradict his apparent conviction that we have come a long way. (I do ask myself the question how much better can a >$10,000 cartridge get, compared to the ones I like best in my systems.) For sure, the commercial sector wants us to believe that the trend is ever onward and upward. Like you, I expect its more horizontal with little ticks upward every once in a while.

I just read the specs of the Verisimo.  I wonder why they quote lateral, rather than vertical, compliance.  I do believe that a major virtue of the MC2000 is its high vertical compliance.  The data on the Verisimo do not permit a direct comparison of compliance parameters.

@rauliruegas

Thanks for your direction to the SME model 15A with series V tonearm. That is about the same price as an SME model 20/3A with series V tonearm. Would you recommend the model 20/3A over the model 15A?

Lewm, while I have nowhere near the scope of experience as Raul, or any personal experience with those 10k+ cartridges, I do own a number of modern (near) top performers like Ortofon A95 and Anna, Transfiguration Proteus, Accuphase AC-6 (same as MSL) and vdHul Colibri XPW. Without reservation these are truly great cartridges, but not in a different league than Miyabi Standard, Ikeda 9 Rex or AT1000mc, to name but a few. I seriously doubt that would be the case with those cartridges that break the 10k barrier.

How many cartridges over $7500 can possibly be sold every year? And so many manufacturers, some who only make cartridges.

Lyra, Koetsu, Ortofon, van den Hul, Soundsmith, My Sonic Lab, Clear Audio, Dynavector, and even Grado are brands I've heard of that have cartridges >$7500. Are all these marketing/halo effect offerings are they actually readily available?

Also....a $70K phono stages I saw mentioned? How many of those have EVER been sold? What are these things made out of?