MM, MC, or MI cartridge

Very curious about MI.

Next week will install my new Grado Epoch3. And uninstall my Lyra Atlas SL.

Will report my findings on my Triplanar SE arm and Woodsong Garrard 301.

@mglik I’ve heard the Epoch3 very nice a bit smooth sounding and more laid back and not a forceful cartridge which can be good or ok depending on your preferences.

@mglik The Grado Lineage Statement 3 is a little brother to the Epoch 3. It is very quiet as far as surface noise goes. It's a decent cartridge, but I can't say it is better than the Nagaoka MP-500, which has a very similar MI design, and one third the price. Neither comes close to the London Decca Jubilee on my other turntable, and presumably will be even less comparable to the London Decca Reference when it comes back from a re-tip.

I ended up buying a second SME 10 in order to compare these cartridges properly. I expect after some back and forth I will keep one dedicated to the London Reference (it has a Series V arm), and the other, which has an M10/309 arm and interchangeable headshells of which I have three, will house the MP-500, the Statement 3, and one of my old LOMC cartridges, likely a B-M Ruby 3.

I'll be very interested to hear what you make of the Epoch. Moving iron designs are fascinating, and it's sad that new London Deccas have stopped production as John Wright has run out of armatures and the company that made them has gone out of business. The Deccas are often difficult to suit to a tonearm, though the Jubilee and Reference are much easier to mount and enjoy than the older designs, and have a remarkable sound that leaves other designs struggling in their wake.

Nagaoka MP500 is MI???  I always thought of Nagaoka cartridges as MM types.

I went to the Grado site to read about the Epoch3.  It seems like a high premium to pay vs their slightly lesser products for cocobolo wood case, gold coils, a sapphire cantilever, and a stylus shape that they are a bit mysterious in describing but might be elliptical. For about one-third the price, you can have jarrah wood and a boron cantilever (the Statement3).  However, the proof of the pudding is in the music each cartridge makes.

Hope RV does not mind us playing on his thread.

If the Decca Londons were available, that is what I would have bought.

But IME with the $13K Lyra Atlas SL, the top line, very pricey cartridge clearly justified its high price and lofty position. I moved up from a very nice Myajima Shalabi. The difference is SQ was shocking. By far, the most improvement of any upgrade in my system.

The Atlas is amazingly good. But I do need to give it a rest. And, to begin with, the Epoch3 is 4 times the output of the Atlas-1mV vs .23mV. So it seems like only that will make the Grado very dynamic. And I am pretty convinced that the Grado will sound very different. Maybe I will prefer it.

My system has recently made a tremendous change going from big box dynamic speakers to Quad 57s. The Quads powered by my AGD Audions have so much newly heard emotion that frequently brings me to tears!

I am very curious to hear what the Epoch3 does to the mids, etc.

At least one review calls the Grado, “the world’s best cartridge”. Let’s see how many grains of salt I take with that.