MC-MM-MI CARTRIDGES . DO YOU KNOW WHICH HAS BETTER QUALITY PERFORMANCE? REALLY?

Dear @dgarretson  : Certainly is a real pleasure to meet you here again, as a fact I know that as me several Agoners miss you and miss your very kigh knowledge audio world levels either technically and sound system first hand experiences. I hope you can continue, time to time, in this forum that needs gentlemans as you.

" throughout your epic thread I accumulated many vintage TOTL MM/MI cartridges, many NOS, and was finally convinced that on identical tonearms a Stanton 981LZS was pretty close to a Lyra Etna. Not to mention top Grace, Precept, Astatic, even an inexpensive Sonus Blue-- a fast and lovely sounding very high compliance design. "

As you several music lovers/audiophiles ( including me ) really enjoy that " new " long cartridge voyage that still today continue.

Your sentence about the Stanton/Etna truly helps me to confirm part of my opinion/answer that till today I don't posted yet in this thread. Obviously that I have my self OP conclusions that will share with all Agoners any time from now.

Btw, yes optical old design cartridge is the " fashion " ( for good reasons. ) in analog with the advantage ( along SG cartridge designs. ) that to develops voltage through tracking grooves velocitties both optical/SG makes it as an amplitude devices and yes as everything in analog has its own trade-offs.

Good to see you again.

R.

Dear @pryso : " I don’t intend to say attending one or two a year is sufficient. Repetition is needed to ingrain the unique sonics or each type of instrument and vocal range. Again there is the likelihood for sonic variations from one live venue to another, one brand or design of a given instrument to another, and individual vocal characteristics. So broad and aggregated experience becomes necessary. "

You are just spot on.

Btw, you know I live in México and in one of my USA trips I was in San Diego Area where I meet you along other incredible gentlemans and audiophiles. I was at your place listening your system through those great Duntech Sorveign and was at your home where took place the second shoot-out between the Dartzeel phonolinepreamp and my Essential 3150 That was a great time with all of you where the most important issue for me was to know great great human being with which all been shared our first hand experiences of our beloved hooby: MUSIC and MUSIC home reproduction.

For me the time with all of you were learning audio times that even today gaves me certainty to my way of thinking in audio world.

Same happened in Dallas ( two times ) with audio lovers as @albertporter and his group, he had the opportunity to listen the Essential 3150 and in the second trip the Essential 3160 too. I was in Idaho, Austin, LA, Denver, Georgia, twice in Houston where I been hosted in his house both times by a gentleman that is some one to meet him and obviously his audio friends he is @fcrowder where I listened for the very first time Rockport TT and the top of the line Acapella speakers: great room/system for say the least.

To many places to name all but I can’t let out Phiuladelphia area hosted by a dear @sbank and his group and between that group was @slipknot1 and that time we liste to the Essential 3150 in his place in a meeting with their audio area club ( at least 20 audiopphiles there ) where was there Lloyd Walker ( TT designer. ) a close fiend of him , obviously that he owned the Walker Procenium surrounded by top audio system.

From here a hot regards to all of them and you in especial.

R.

Great post Raul.

As always there are many roads to Rome. No one cartridge design has been shown to be significantly better. It is all in the execution. I have heard several very convincing MC and MI cartridges. MM seems to lag a little bit behind. I auditioned the Strain Gauge. It is on the bright side do to response irregularities and it will not handle high groove velocities near as well as a MI or MC cartridge will.

I believe everyone should carefully examine new cartridges and any irregularity should be reported to the company immediately. No manufacturer can be perfect 100% of the time when it comes to these microscopic assemblies. Careful alignment is also necessary to produce the best performance. Only the owner will take the time to do this correctly. There are tools that greatly improve accuracy in cartridge alignment. I would like to suggest the WallySkater, the Wally Performance and the SmarTractor as tools that can greatly speed up this process and improve accuracy. 

Dover, I don’t think I can be wrong for asking why a “good LOMC cartridge” (whatever that is) would produce lowest groove noise. Because I’ve made no assertion. I just wanna know why. Of course I also think compliance, VTA, stylus shape, and almost everything else have more to do with groove noise than the mechanics of transduction.

Is it possible to really generalize about this?  Can we say that all mms are inferior to all mc, for example?  Or are some mm better than some mcs?  One can speak of general traits of differing technologies, but ultimately a high degree of musical fidelity can be obtained with all of them.  At some point listener preference becomes key