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

I've got an NOS Empire 4000D3, too, bought during the heyday of the MM cartridge thread, after it was announced that some vendor had a supply of them.  I must say until now I did not know it was an MI type. Nor do I think I knew that Azden was MI. Ya learn something new every day.

@terry9

Thank You for your suggestions in relation to considerations for a SS Build.

I express an interest in SS as a already built design and one that has a Steadily Growing Interest and Customer Base.  

FTR, I don't need anything Audio Equipment wise to improve on where I am. I have got of the Bus on my Audio Journey, my Stop was found.

That said, I enjoy Audio, Audio Enthusiasts and Audio Equipment Designer / Builders, I spend more time listening with Audio Minded Individuals, experiencing  their creations for their systems. Or experiencing the EE work of another, as a design evolves through prototypes to an end product.

My interest in the SS Phon' is not that I believe it will be a betterment over anything I have. Even if it does supersede others to become the go to device as a Built In MC Input, or SUT > MM Input / Head Amp > MM Input.

What matters to myself, is that I own something that has a Legacy. I have been part of the stages of selecting Components (even had suggestions adopted) as well as have had a input to the Topology.

I have been privileged throughout the years to have been demo's numerous very adept designs for a Phon' in all Types, SS, Valve Input/Output, Valve Hybrid.

Many have been encountered using very attractive supporting audio equipment as a period of Comparison Demonstrations (Bake Off).

When it comes to the selections I have made for my own Phono Amplification, I am contented with my choices, and confident they are difficult to surpass, but I am sure much more monies will find devices able to surpass them.

For myself and how I like to build to a Purchase, such devices with such additional expense, will fail in convincing me they will Supersede what I own.

For many many years I have analysed sound, and had an amount of guidance on how sound produced as a result of Audio can be produced, and where it is to presented at its most attractive. I take it that for this reason, I receive many invites to experiencing Audio Equipment in use, especially honing it down to the Design Build be carried out. I am not in no way an expert, but have ears that are from a broad spectrum of Audio Related Listening Experiences, where some of my comments offered are noted and in cases attempts are made to address.

Today, I am different, I view Audio Sound as Noise with an intent to Entertain, there the noise offers up a Pleasantry to the Experience being had.

I see using audio equipment as means to experience Music in the poorest way I would like to experience music, but by selecting a dedicated audio system of the level put together, it becomes the best option for me to listen to music, if not experiencing it as a Live Performance. 90% of my listening to Music in my home is using other Electronical Types of Audio Equipment that is cheap and does not compare to the dedicated Audio System. The Cheap Audio System is equally as artificial and equally as enjoyable to experience music on, as it is experienced in the Company of individual's that are enjoyed and a Pleasure to be with.

Listening to music in the Company of others who are a Pleasure to be With, has been my goal in audio for the best part of 20 years, when I turned my person from  being a sole locked away in room listener. 

When it comes to sound today, for me anyway, it is much more about having a broad palette.

If an invite is made to attend a get together on a Bleak Winters Morning, who would not turn down a session by a Log Fire with Audio Equipment adorned with the Glow of Valves, Friendly Faces and Laid on Lunch, pure Audio Experience Bliss, with no agenda other than enjoy the encounter.

If an invite is made on a Morning in the Spring, where the Sun is up high at approx' 9.00am, I can't think of a better place to be than in thick of a natural environment, as isolated from man made sound as possible, absorbing all the sound that Nature can carry to me.

And then the other side of the coin, nearly every Friday evening, I leave my work place a little earlier than usual, not because it is Friday, but to, experience the Buskers who perform only once in the week, being the Friday, on the Train Station I travel from. I have experienced Live Acoustic Weekly on more occasions than I can count. Guitar, Cello, Violin, Trumpet, Drums, Vocal's, Choir, Bands are all experienced on a Friday.  I have paid to hear music be produced in many Venues, from acoustic, rock, orchestra, Choir. Meeting the same presentation in Public Spaces from Buskers or Charity Organised Performances is equally as pleasant and only costs the donation offered up.

Life really is too too short to become extremely narrow minded about tools to produce Music as an artificial produced sound and the artificial sound produced.      I refuse to be restricted in where I achieve sound that has a stimulus that has an attraction. 

Music is being produced everywhere, experiencing it at the source it is being produced at, is a real life experience, a Stimulus with an attraction and a memory made. Taking such an encounter and then squandering one's little time on earth, trying to recreate it as a artificial sound, in a completely different people less environment, on a electronic equipment, designed with an end game to move air, resulting in a produced sound, well what can I say, 

" Each to their own, but I have much more in my mind, for my time to be used, than spending it on such fantastical ideas".       

If it were not for an Osteopath Appointment this morning, I would be out in nature, and not corrupting the quietness of ambient sound, with the sound of crunching the Keypad, 🕺, the old dance moves need to be eked (crunched) out of me. 

@lewm  :In those vintage years Azden ( Nippon Azden ) was a cartridge manufacturer as Excel that made it its own cartridge lines and several OEM too.

 Your Acutex was made it by Azden too. Both MM and LOMC/HOMC Azden top of the line are first rate quality performers.The MM are P-mount body design.

WellaNOS 4000D3 is really weird today and you need to mount it and give a listening and then share your opinion about.

But more rare is to found out that I own the Empire MC 5 ( I just forgot of this cartridge. )  and never mounted but the " rare " came because this MC model never looks the sun-light.Empire never marketed and the cartridge was designed by Ernst Benz. Other MC that Empire marketed was the VDH design MC 1000 with silver coils.

Yes, this week-end will be dedicated to Empire 4000D3 and MC 5.

Btw, if theMC 5 was not marketed it's a mystery how I own   ? ? ! !

Anyway, time for fun.

R.

Well, after some research seems that I bought The Empire MC5 at ebay where the seller was Ed Saunders, I think.

R.

I'm headed to Tokyo tomorrow morning, so no vinyl for about 3 weeks, for me.