Advice needed on MC cartridges

👍 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.

Skyscraper: I had a similar experience with the High Output Moving Coil Sumiko ‘Songbird’ cartridge, moving from what appears to have been a worn-out Stanton 500-II moving magnet cartridge. I also changed phono stages at the same time, but I’m pretty sure the improvement came from the cartridge. With a decent LO, neither 44year old son or myself could tell the difference between Peggy Lee on a CD and Peggy Lee at Basin Street East on an LP. For lack of experience, I couldn’t tell you how a Song Bird compares to an Ortophon Black (which I had [and still am] considering for my second system), but I can testify that a cartridge ‘upgrade’ is certainly worth the money. I have heard A-B comparisons between Moving Coil and Moving Magnet on YouTube; the MC was certainly brighter and ‘faster,’ but the MM was more mellow. If you have two tone arms, two turntables, or replaceable head shells, you could have the best of both worlds. Good luck on your journey toward High Fidelity nirvana— the perfect system! (I speak tongue-in-cheek) 🙂

@skyscraper 

I too have recently got hold of a Hana ML low output  moving coil cart. mounted on a Sota Sapphire tt. The Hana simply out performed every other cart. I ever had. One sweet sounding cart. to be sure.

Dear @skyscraper  : "" on a MC cartridge before a noticeable, or significant improvement, might be heard in sound quality over the Ortofon 2M’s performance? ""

If you really want to make a true " differences " for the better you need to invest money through that LOMC you are looking for. Not for an entry level in that MC world.

"" $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? ""

No, it's not and around that money figure you can really say: I'm in a different " league " and you have really good options around that budget:

https://www.lyraanalog.com/kleos.html

or this one:

R.