What Cart. for a Infinity Black widow

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.

I use an SME sourced Oracle 345 arm and a Micro Seiki 1500 with vacuum platter and air bearing, a Linn Sondek, a Technics SP 10MK-11 and MK-111 and Teac TN-400 pro TT with magnafloat platter. I have various tonearms including a Linn, a Grace 707, Fidelity Research FR-64, and Signet. I use a Counterpoint SA-9 phono stage with slight mods by Mike Elliot. I also have an use an NEW phono stage and Counterpoint SA-3 preamp with phono. I also have in my system at this time an NAD S100 preamp which I have not tried with my TT yet. My speakers are Chario Academy 111Jrs. My amp is a Krell FPB 600. I have also used Fourier OTLs and Audio Research CL 120's and even have a pair of Audionics CC-2's that I keep for back-ups that sound really good.
I am sure you can find fault with my system or my ears. But, I have had almost every brand of audio equipment in my system worth mentioning because I have many friends in the audio business, I am in the audio business and can try almost anything I want and I have been around for a lot longer than I care to mention and have seen and heard a lot. So, I don't care if the Absolute Sound says about the Shure cartridge I prefer to listen for myself.
I don't think the Shure cartridge is bad, it is great for what it is and I don't think the Carnegie is great, I know there are better MCs out there. As I expressed earlier the Carnegie is an old cartridge but I think, as well as most of my friends who have heard it, that it sounds better than the Shure in my system.
I would love for the Shure to be the best there is. I am a Shure dealer and you would be surprised at what I can get them for. But it juat ain't so.

Hey Gang. Any of you remember the sonus blue mounted in the blackwidow or a mayware? Wowza!Set up on an Linn lp-12,It Magic, the airiest and most open sounding MM this guy ever has ever heard[to this very day].Haven't heard anything since that would float instruments or voices on their own cushion of air the way the Blue could! Unfortunately, the styli was so compliant, none of them lasted more than 6 months [even in the Widow.] I remember the guys with sme's and bruer's getting about 50 hours playing time before experiencing the dreaded stylus fatigue.I would really love to hear one today and compare it with the grado reference or the latest sure.At the time, the v15 type 3,or the grado signatures weren't even remotely close to the magic of the sonus blue.

Rwwear, you have fabulous equipment, and I'm sure there's nothing wrong with your ears. I never said or wrote that the Shure is the most detailed, or the most dynamic and all those audiophile goodies that we are all trained to revere. But in terms of neutrality, I will stand by it, as so many others - professional reviewers included - have done. Also, it is pretty good at all that audiophile stuff. But we are trained to look for ever-finer detail and so forth and eventually lose sight of the music. For those who want to look beyond the obvious audiophile obssessions to something difficult to describe, the essence of music, there are components which do it quietly, like the Shure. Do not assume those who follow the Shure path do so based on reviews. In fact the opposite is true, as the Shure has been dissed in the press ever since the first mega-buck MCs appeared - this is the current dogma, we are trained to look elsewhere: Shure afficionados listen for themselves, against prevailing opinion. My mention of TAS (which after years of damning it with faint praise is just rediscovering this gem - due more to a personal audio journey, a changing outlook) is to point out that people with very expensive systems and access to all kinds of audio goodies, just like yourself, choose the Shure. Different strokes for different folks, but the Shure cannot be dismissed as lightly as you do. The Shure camp is listening for different things than you are, evidently: a matter of personal philosophy. As I wrote before to be more constructive: is your Carnegie (which is also used by a member of TAS) a high-compliance cartridge, and if this so, which implies that the better timing I (and many others) hear in MMs as oppposed to MCs is due to their high compliance, is it perhaps time to start building high-compliance MCs again and so further the art? Isn't that what such a forum is for? And Ecclectique, where can I get a Sonus, as I am increasingly interested in MMs of any sort? And Bro57, how's your Rega doing?

I will listen to the V15 again and keep one in my system. As for my equipment, I mentioned it only because of Dopo or Doper or whatever his name is wanted to imply that it was inferior, to which it is compared to some stuff out there. But it is very musical to most.