Still looking for a new Moving Coil Cartridge

I have a Zu Denon DL103 that came with a turntable I bought.  It sounded awful and I was going to throw it away, but decided to send it to Andy Kim to see if he could bring it back to life.  Boy, did he ever! 

I have a Hana SL and it's a very nice cartridge, but the Zu has more detail and is more lively, if a little less "refined" than the Hana.  The Hana is a fine cartridge and would be different, but to my ears, not "better".  If you like a warmish to neutral sound and if the Zu is a bit too wild and wooly for you, the Hana might be a good choice. 

I suggest reaching out to Andy and see if there's a way to tailor the sound of the Zu more to your taste.  That would be the best "bang for the buck" option in my opinion.

Hana SL is very exciting cart to listen. I have also the ML which I love.For your needs the SL is the way to go.

OP

"I listen to 95% 60’s, 70’s and 80’s Rock and want whatever cartridge I purchase to make the records sound good without excessive surface noise."

Where are you getting the LP’s?

I had a LOT of LP’s, bought in 60’s; 70’s, 80’s. Then along came CDs. LPs gathered dust, friends gave me their used LPs ... I had about 2500 lps, some new, then I inherited 4,000, mostly Jazz played once.

When I started playing my old ones again, OMG, noisy, nearly unlistenable.

I developed my manual scrub routine, and was/am very happily surprised, they play much much quieter than when dirty. Night and Day difference.

You need to get aggressive with them, dirt has been pushed down into the grooves, and modern stylus get deeper in the grooves, digging junk out if you don’t get it out.

I mean SCRUB!

What I mean to say, no new cartridge will make them as quiet as you hope, but aggressive cleaning will help a lot, with any cartridge.

I only discuss equipment I have had personal experience with.

Goldring Eroica LX (low output MC) with Gyger II stylus:

My friend owned one, was not set up for MC, so I mounted/played it here. Nice, but we both preferred my AT33PTG/II (what a stupid name).

Recently he got setup for MC, played it thru his system. Nice, but he's going back to his Grace MM which sounded better to him. I hadn't heard the Grace recently, but when I set it up properly for him it sounded damnnnn good I remember.

He knows what to do to align, but does not have the steadiness to do it himself. I still do, for how long??

In my OP I said I wanted little surface noise. That does not imply my records are dirty.  I have a VPI 16.5 RCM and all my records have been cleaned and put back in the jackets.  I just don’t want a cartridge that emphasizes the surface noise and I want whatever cartridge I buy to sound fantastic with Rock music.  
 

There have been a lot of different cartridge recommendations but no one is telling me they will make my rock records sing.  Does anyone have first hand experience in the cartridges recommended with rock music?