What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

Once you start creating Frankenstein cartridges, by changing or modifying cantilevers, styli, coils, suspension, bodies, etc, then opinions regarding the net SQ are even more useless than otherwise, not to say that comparing OEM cartridges without respect to different tonearms, turntables, amplification, speakers, rooms, listeners, is a worthwhile pursuit, beyond expressions of love, meh-ness, or hate.

It would never have occurred to me that the road to cable Nirvana would be found by combining many strands of wire of different gauges and different shapes (ribbon AND round cross-section) and even different compositions (one strand seems to be copper sheathed in silver; the rest of the strands are pure silver).  I don't know how to rationalize it, but I don't argue with listening tests.  I think Mike and others on WBF are just as surprised at the results.

I was surprised at how much better things got when I went balanced. One of the goals of balanced operation is to eliminate interconnect cable interactions and it does that quite well.

fundamentally using an SUT potentially brings a musical touch, inner artistic view and envelopment that high gain phono preamps such as the darTZeel can’t quite do in the same way. this effect varies with actual execution of the phono and SUT.

SUTs can't pass the RFI that is generated by a LOMC cartridge (its an interaction of inductance in parallel with capacitance that makes the RFI). This suggests that the preamp is sensitive to RFI and so sounds better when its been filtered out. If the preamp isn't sensitive to RFI then the SUT won't bring anything to the table (other than possibly lower noise).

For an MM phono stage, such as the one Mike uses, there is no option besides using an outboard SUT or other active gain device ahead of the stage, with a LOMC cartridge.  Thus the sensitivity of the EMIA stage to RFI cannot fairly be judged in this case.  Maybe Mike is comparing the EMIA devices collectively to the high gain phono section of his DarTZeel (assuming it has one).

@atmasphere 1++,  balanced cables are the only way to go with analog signals even with short runs.

yes; the EMIA phono corrector + MC Trio is a package deal; which then can be compared directly with the two high gain internal phono’s inside the darTZeel preamp.

the dart phono’s are very good; overall i prefer the EMIA approach. but then i might prefer it to any phono i have heard. the dart phono is certainly hard to beat at what it does.

my CS Port phono (which the EMIA Phono Corrector replaced) had three inputs; one of which was an internal SUT; the other two were MM inputs which required outboard SUT’s.

as far as balanced cables the only way to go with analog signals, that is a silly thing to say. who has heard all the non balanced choices? no one. i do respect the advantages to a balanced circuit and cables, but things are not so simple as that being the only thing that matters. it's just one aspect to the performance.