Need A High Compliance Cartridge

@dmk_calgary I'm a huge fan of Deccas, but I wouldn't begin to know how to think of them in terms of compliance. The movement (particularly lateral movement) of the armature must be so small, I guess the proper description is "Compliance: not applicable"!

Van den Huls are high compliance. At new, they can be VERY tricky with tracking until the suspension breaks in a bit. Then they’re nice carts. I just had to stick with it and not give up. Used them with both low (VPI) and medium-high mass (FR64fx) arms - honestly didn’t notice much difference based on mass.

Most MI (like Grado and SoundSmith) and MM carts tend to be high compliance, because these designs do not feature the stiff suspension string and stout damper typical of most MC designs (they can also be more fragile due to this). Van den Hul is the exception, making MC’s with relatively high compliance.

Lyras are on the high side of medium compliance cartridges and generally do well with lower mass arms. You can always add a little mass. Soundsmith sells a really nice set of graded mass cartridge screws.

You can buy an Ortofon OM5e Super for $79.99 and then purchase an OM40 Stylus for $340.00. That's a high compliance low mass cart with an aggressive line contact nude stylus.  I sold one like this to a guy who had inherited an Infinty Black Widow and it worked out well for him.  My experience dates from the golden era of high compliance MM carts, before MCs became de riguer in audiophile setups.  My faves were Sonus Blue Label and ADC XLMs.  You can still score XLMs on eBay, and Jico makes a quality stylus for them.

Soundsmith carts are available in low, medium, and high compliance, plus have a pretty amazing story behind them - including a great rebuild policy. 

https://www.sound-smith.com/cartridge-compliancearm-mass-chart