Best Cartridges for the Money You've Experienced

"I currently have a Koetsu Rosewood Signature mounted on an SME-5 arm. I'd like to go up from there in sound quality without having to rob a bank."

From the level of an Koetsu Rosewood Signature I think it's hard to find anything substantial better...but you have a lot of choices which sound different....people who tend to buy 5000$+ carts, in the first place to have the most expensive toy, might say something different.

I have listened to different Koetsus, Kiseki, SPU's, Ikeda, Audio Note, Shelter, Benz, EMT, Transfiguration...

Imho from a certain level of performance it's more a question of taste and not of absolute quality...not to forget system and component matching.

If you want something good from the past...I would recommend to watch out for Kiseki's and I can also reccomend there step up Transformers. I use a Blue Goldspot and the matching MCT-2 step up.

Raul, I was wondering if you could recommend a cart alignment device. I have tried a couple, but the only one that work well for me is the Graham that allow me to align with the arwand off the table.

What device do you use? Thank you in advance.

Bolson, I am un unashamed Denon DL103 fan. I use mine in wooden bodies obtained from a gent in Belgium name Uwe. For the $400 odd all in costs, they are simply amazing.

The plastic body of std DL103 and DL103R really dtract from their performance.

Regards
Paul

All cartridges have their personalities..I've heard lots of them. The top Benz's are more like Koetsu's because of that lucious midrange...as an added bonus, they track well, have good lows and highs, and great dynmics. The Koetus and the Benz's are very musical as opposed to analytical, cerebral, etc., etc.

I concur with Paul above, just installed my ebony head shell on my 103r this evening, completely changed the 103r, gone are all the bad points that were irritating. In retrospect, the 103r is a terrible sounding cartridge in stock form.

This is a tremendous cartridge when you get a wood shell around it, replacing the factory plastic one.

Dear Pauly: Over the years I used several ones like: Dennesen, DB, Mobile Fidelity, ADC, SAEC, etc, etc.

Today that I'm using only removable headshell tonearms I'm using the one from Dynavector, Technics and Pionner, all these for the overhang and obviously are out of tonearm with the cartridge/headshell on " hand ": easy.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.