Recommend an MC cartridge

For the past 5 years I lived with both, a Benz Micro LP-S ebony and an Audio technical ART-1000. I sold the benz last year, because the ART-1000 just gives more "life" to "live" recordings: deeper sound stage, sharper attacks, better focus around soloists. And now they have an improved version out with a square geometry of the coils, which supposedly gives more electro-magnetic flux. I can strongly recommend both, but in the end preferred the ART-1000. Until three months ago that is. On a recent business trip to Japan I met Mr. Sawada of ARLabs in Hamamatsu, who played his Miyaji MEMS cartridge for me a) in his living room, and b) in a coffee shop that is specialized to play analog music to its patrons through a 1 million dollar system featuring the large Avantgarde horn speaker assembly with plasma tweeters and a pair of super-woofers the size of a garage door. The cartridge is unlike anything on the market, as it is based on acoustically "listening" to the stylus movement with two independent square-millimeter-sized condenser microphones inside the cartridge body. In other words, the same physics here for playing a record that were used to record it. The result is complete linearity over the entire audible frequency spectrum (forget about RIAA equalization). Here is a website, which leads you further: https://www.monoandstereo.com/new-arsound-miyaji-mems-cartridge/ , or here: https://gestalthifi.com/arsound/. Long story short: I was so blown away by the life-like presentation of this instrument (in both venues) that I bought it on the spot after abusing a local ATM. In my opinion, this cartridge is a complete game changer based on fundamentally different physics, and a cartridge that tracks at 1.5 grams (!) and does not need a phono stage with its 250 mV (!) output. Price wise it is around $5,000 if you buy it stateside. So, if you have not yet bought another MC, you owe it to yourself to audition the future. Sadly, my beloved ART-1000 sits in the drawer now.

2nd the Lyra Delos. Imaging is incredible

Just demoed the Kleos and it’s even more refined .

transients and low level detail are better

Good luck Willy-T

Reimac, until reading your post, I had never heard of this new Miyajima cartridge that you purchased in Tokyo. I am a little disappointed in myself, because I just returned from almost 3 weeks staying with my son in Tokyo, and I would have loved that experience that you had. so can you please say more about the cartridge? The question that arises is that you can’t just forget about RIAA correction, because all LPs are encoded with the RIAA filter in the first place. So I am wondering if this is what others have called a strain gauge cartridge , and how well it informs to RIAA in the playback. Other companies that market strain gauge cartridges also market, a special gain stage that is said mysteriously to help the output to conform to the RIAA correction algorithm.

I ordered an Etsuro Blue Cobalt & AnalogMagik software package with smartTractor. 

I’ve been using an ZYX “Ultimate Airy X” for a couple years now and absolutely love it. Detailed, big soundstage and 3-dimensional. If you have a bright system, it’s probably not the best, as it leans on the brighter side. It’s great with my system, which is very neutral or maybe slightly warm.