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) 🙂
Advice needed on MC cartridges
I’ve an Ortofon Black 2M cartridge on my VPI Classic 2 turntable, It’s a moving magnet type cartridge with a Shibata stylus and cost about $700 when purchased. I could easily be wrong, but am under the impression that the Ortofon 2M Black is about as good as it gets with MM cartridges and if I wished to upgrade I’d need to be thinking about moving into a MC, moving coil, type.
So I’ve been trying to learn something about moving coil cartridges and what differences or improvements in sound quality might be obtained by using one. My integrated amp, a Luxman 507uX Mk2, has a built in phono stage and can play either type,
Generally speaking, how much more would need to be spent on a MC cartridge before a noticeable, or significant improvement, might be heard in sound quality over the Ortofon 2M’s performance? What improvements in performance might you obtain using one a better quality MC over the Ortofon 2M Black? And third, what MC cartridges might you recommend that would fit in performance and budget wise with a system composed of the above equipment plus Magico A3 speakers. My other equipment is a Marantz Ruby CD/SACD player and a Shunyata Denali Hydra power conditioner.
I’ve never heard a MC cartridge in use so would be interested in following your advice and recommendations to see if I can find a dealer or someone that might be able to demo one so I can hear what the differences might be in performance. Thank you for any responses or suggestions
Mike
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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
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Your Luxman has very good design and canhandle that level of quality performance with no problem. Obviously that in any room/system always exist weak links in the system audio chain and yours is no exception. Example; is it your TT/tonearm the optimum for any of those cartridges?. No, it's not but can works and latter on you can make the up-grades need it.
What's clear is that with your today system you will know for sure the high quality differences for the better.
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