Advice needed on MC cartridges

Thank you all for your input. I’m learning a lot from you all. I’ll try to respond to each of your posts one at a time below.

Noromance- glad you had good luck with your Decca stylus replacement

Jasonbourne- thanks for the explanation on the the MC’s low inductance coil, faster transient response, and their lower cable capacitance loading. I’ll be looking int the Hana’s as several here have recommended them.

Ghdprentice- you mentioned your $3500 Ven den Hull Frog MC cartridge took your system to a whole new level. Could you explain what improvement you have been hearing and what cartridge and type you’d been using previously?

Socalm- thank you for your useful comparison of the performance of your Hana ML to the Ortofon Black 2M and the link. I really trying to get an understanding of how a MC might sound different form a MM so that comparison was spot on.

Richdirector, yes the Luxman. 507uX Mk2 does have a built in phono stage you can set for either MM or MC. Don’t know what setting a MI might use but I’ll figure that out as I keep learning from all.of you.

Mjjostyn and Dover, as a former Howard Johnson employer at age 16, I can attest to what mijostyns is saying. Interesting that you mention MC’s being brighter, generally speaking. I’ll have to listen for that if I’m able to get any demos. Thanks

Knock1, thank you for the comparison of the Ortofon 2M to your Hana ML. A lot of folks here seem to like the Hana’s.

LewM- Thank you for you long and thoughtful post. You provided a lot of pertinant information to consider. I’ve already read your post twice. Thank you. The low output type MC’s seem to get better reviews so far here. so i’ll keep that in mind. As you advise I won’t be buying vintage or used. If you don’t mind my asking How do you think a Audio Technica ART7 might sound differently than my Ortofon 2M?

Tim_p- i’ll definitely be looking into the HANA line.

Jim (tomic60)- Thanks, I am trying to dope out how much more more i’d have to spend to get a significantly better/different cartridge performance from my Ortofon Black 2M considering the components and setting of my current system. You mentioned an upper end $3000 figure for a good cartridge. For my current system with a VPI Classic 2 turntable do you think a cartridge costing that much might be overkill for my system? Or should I really be thinking of cartridges of that cost as suitable for my system .without any other system upgrades?

I’ll look up Lyra Delos cartridges too since you mention them.

Erikt, Thank you for mentioning the AT33SA and how well it matches it matches with the MC impedence of your Luxman-509x. That's definitely pertinent to my system and I’ll be sure to look up the AT33SA in short orfder. Thank you much.

Hope I didn’t miss anybody and thanks again all. You’ve given me a lot to think about and research.

Mike

I, too, had a Hana SL moving-coil cartridge mounted on a JMW 10" Memorial Tonearm on a VPI TNT 3.5 turntable.  It was superb but one channel failed open after a bit more than one year.  Before that a Clearaudio Stradivari v2 lasted six years in the same tonearm/turntable and was still OK when I traded it.  Despite the Hana SL problem, I replaced it with the somewhat more expensive Hana ML cartridge, which is still going strong after three years.

The sound of the SL and ML was excellent.  In fact, the Sound of both was, to my ears, noticeably better than the $3,750 Clearaudio Strdivari, v2.

Op. On my Frog. Previous cartridges… it has been a while, early on I had a Shure V15, Audio Techniques (?) a couple in the $500 - $750 price range.

The difference… like night and day. Surface noice vanished… wasn’t just a little reduced, vanished. Most ticks and pops vanished… or were so reduced they became negligible ( I attribute this to the stylist going much deeper into the grooves). The soundstage widened and depth increased. Amount of detail increased… the bass went up radically. I had my old ~ $750cartridge on my new VPI TT for about a week. I remember particularly the bass improved with the new table… but much of the substantive improvement came from the cartridge.

Normanthagard, thank you for the recommendation on the Hanas cartridges.

Ghdprentice, Thank you for describing in what ways the Van den Hull Frog (MC) improved your system’s sound quality. Interesting how your record surface noise was so reduced. That’s always been an issue for me. Years ago I tried solutions like Carvers Phase Linear Autocorrelator and Burwens Transient Noise Eliminator, but never considered a better designed needle and cartridge could help in that regard..

Mike

👍 A really high end cartridge is a thing of beauty. It was truly a jaw dropping moment of how good a turntable could be. I just thought surface noise and pops were something you had to endure… then they just disappeared.

I now have a high-end Linn with a much better cartridge (better… but the biggest gain was getting out of the sub $1k range to the Frog). Just for fun I recently played some albums really loud… I just couldn’t believe how quiet the background was.

In choosing a cartridge the thing to do is to choose one who’s description matches your desires. If you want etched detail at any cost you will pay the price in scooping up unnecessary noise. The Frog is a beautiful, detailed and natural sounding cartridge… I enjoyed it very much.