What Cart. for a Infinity Black widow

Bro57, Good Choice: MM! I'll have to give the Rega cartridges a whirl too, some day. Looking forward to your impressions of the Black Widow as well!

I can't believe anyone would prefer an MM over a good low output MC. Of course you must have a phono stage capable of driving a low output cartridge but there is no comparison. My Madrigal Carnegie is very old but simply makes the Shure V15 sound mechanical in comparison as I said in an earlier post.

Rwwear, believe it. If a Shure V15xMR sounds "mechanical" in your system, I wouldn't blame the cart.

My responses were based on the constraints of the arm being used. Off the top of my head, i don't know any MC cartridges that work optimally in a very low mass pivoted arm.

Other than that, i can understand how someone listening to a good MC cartridge could find the Shure to sound "mechanical". It lacks the flow, air, liquidity and sense of ease that some other cartridges bring with them to a system. Kind of like a professional gliding through a job and an unskilled laborer performing the same task. You may end up with what many might consider nearly the same results, but the amount of speed and finesse displayed obtaining those results is undeniably quite different. Sean
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Rwwear, tell it to the staff at TAS, who have for the most part mounted the Shure on their $20,000 record players and SME Vs, I assume not because it sounds inferior to the alternatives out there. Perhaps they did not have Carnegies. Like all cartridges, the Shure benefits from an effort to set it up optimally. As your Carnegie (I've owned better MCs) must be run through equipment that will show it to best advantage, so does the Shure, which is a true, world-class cartridge on the cheap. But it's too cheap, and does not fall into the audiophile Dogma that MCs are superior, and must eventually be considered by those who want to get serious in analogue. I've been through that mill ($2000 MCs), and I emerged on the other side with a fresh apppreciation of MMs, and the Shure in particular. And so far, I would say that MMs time better (and the Shure especially) than MCs, I know not why, I just trust my throbbing, pounding heart. And for "telling the truth" and tonal neutrality (secondary issues as far as I'm concerned), nothing, and I mean nothing, even comes close. Perhaps it's the neutrality that's bothering you, then again perhaps you simply did not give it a chance. Then again, different things appeal to us all.