Turntable Cartridge upgrade question.

Ok guys so after all of your comments I believe I found my answer on my initial question : what would be step up to MC type cartridges in price range $1200 that would be way better than 2M Black ?.

The answer is: pretty much any good brand and quality MC outperforms good quality MM.

But the real answer is the fact that in my case changing just cartridge makes little or non noticeable improvement, I need new cartridge and new phono stage, but to add problems and expenses  I saddled on PASS XP 15 so now I debate of the PASS pre amps perhaps XP12  and ultimately replacing my Threshold S550e for PASS X250.8 , yes it will be expensive to do it right. Thank you all for input !

@ssg308 There is no rush to absorb the info of interest.

Copy/paste the valuable items, put the info into a email draft with a Title to describe the stored content.

Highlight the info to show the importance to yourself.

When better understood and more is wanted to be learned, it is then easy to extract and take the discussion further.

Additionally important, there is no need to rush into any decisions that you may feel are needed to be made.

Set the Journey up to be one that has good memories.

Depending on what you have for a phono stage now, upgrade the cart to an MC as long as the current phon stage can accept it. Start slow. Then upgrade to a better phono stage. I have been told the cart is more noticeable than the phono stage. I have a Saturn Audio phono stage that I love, I am looking to upgrade my cart to a Dynavector.

Whatever you end up doing, I hope it suits you well. I happen to disagree with this:

The answer is: pretty much any good brand and quality MC outperforms good quality MM.

- as I have some MI cartridges that will give any MC a run for their money (London Deccas). But money isn't the best way of judging quality: I have in the last few days revisited a pair of $5k cartridges, both MI, which I can swap in to replace a $1k MP-500. And I ended up wondering why I bothered to buy more SME 309 headshells for them. The Grado Statement 3 is perhaps being libelled by me. It has no character, and perhaps that is a desirable characteristic. The Soundsmith Sussurro is livelier, more detailed, but suffers from a lack of bass when run through my VAS SUT. The MP-500 sounds better than either of them. Now I write this with my ear corrupted by Benz Micro LP-S warmth. That has become important to me, and I keep wondering if I should use my mono-converted Ruby 3 for everything (I don't hear stereo having only one ear). At the end of it all, as long as we like what we hear, we should be satisfied.

is there any other brand worth looking in to ? 

@ssg308 sorry, I didn't see your question until now. But yes, there are lots of other good cartridges and brands, but it's more of a known quantity to move up an Ortofon model line given you like the 2M Black.

But the real answer is the fact that in my case changing just cartridge makes little or non noticeable improvement, I need new cartridge and new phono stage....

I'm not really sure that was what came across in the thread.

Invariably people start talking about what they like best and how you could upgrade all sorts of things to improve your sound or to bring out the best in all your gear, but I really do think upgrading your cartridge and keeping all your other existing equipment can still give you a noticeable improvement.