Cartridges

the problem is not only the cost of great pressings, but the shoe leather it takes to find them. and how to know condition without buying 5 or 6 to find a quiet one. putting together a great collection of vintage early pressings is borderline impossible unless you can buy a collection already already curated.

so buying a great cartridge and buying easier to source new and more available used is more real world for someone starting out. you still get great sound.

but if given a choice, i would rather have great vintage original pressings and a modest cartridge than a great cartridge and new pressings. but it’s not a choice most of us can ever make.

i would caution anyone jumping into the Tom Port 'Hot Stamper' cauldron blindly without first doing their homework. and knowing what is what takes time and effort.

i would rather have great vintage original pressings and a modest cartridge than a great cartridge and new pressings.
 

+1 there’s your answer 

For *me*, based on your post, I would definitely drop the cart high bar to where I mentioned and focus on building record collection up. My 2c

I only have 1 expensive record. It is Steely Dan Aja (Cisco) and came from discogs. They were asking 850 for an unopened copy, but I got a used copy, I think they labeled it mint with near mint cover, for 400. I really did it as an experiment to see if there was anything to quality in different pressings. It really is different. I can turn it up as loud as I want with no fatigue at all. And it is super quiet. Sometimes I do visit the hot Stamper site out of curiosity. Just the other day I saw a Led Zeppelin copy there for $2500! I won’t be getting one.

I own probably a dozen reissues and over 1000 original vintage LPs from the 60s and 70s. To my ear the originals sound so much better than the re-issues but that’s just me. Having said that because this post is about cartridges I recently upgraded to an Ortofon 2M Bronze, and I am shaking my head at the amount of detail coming off of these old LPs. Background instruments, and singers and other detail I never knew existed. I’m not sure what would be gained by having anything better on my vintage Thorens, TD 145 and that cartridge was a bit less than 500 bucks.  I would have to think the law of diminishing returns sets in fairly quickly as the cost starts to rise over this level.