Whats the best Cartridge for a bright Pro-ject 9 ?

If you have a 20XL and are running it at 100 Ohms loading with your MF X-LPS than it may sound a tad bright. If you have a 20XH and are running it at 47K it may also sound a little bright. Running the 20XH at 100 Ohms may dampen it too much, but it's worth a try if you haven't already.

For comparison, I'm running a 20XL (on a mmf-7) at 34 Ohms loading (headamp to Rogue Stealth phono stage) with a SS integrated amp and it's sounding darn good right now after about 50 hours of break-in. Detailed yes, bright no, with plenty of low end and mid range.

Tom

How about a smooth sounding moving magnet such as a Shure M97XE, or a Denon 160 high output moving coil. Both are slightly on the warm side of neutral.
Michael

Your question is rife with crazy making. I have discovered that the balancing act of using a bright component with a rolled off contrasting component introduces additional problems to the system. My suggestion is to use components that have flat perspectives. That is the only way to have the whole system working to its best advantage. What I have done in my system is to buy components of a manufacturer whose ideas of good sound matches mine. All these components from the same manufacturer were designed around each other, and therefore they work the best with each other. I have found that choosing excellent components (choose those from The Absolute Sound, Stereophile, etc. top 10 list), putting these components together can give you quite an awful sounding system....the strengths of each of these components being mitigated by the other components. ...jut a thought....

06-27-08: Headsnappin
Zeal, try lowering the back of the arm as dynavectors correct vta is a touch low in the back.

I absolutely agree! This has a profound effect on the balance between leading edges and detail on one hand and the bloom and body of the sound on the other. Lower your arm 2-3 mm and see what you get. Your ideal sound may be literally "under your nose."

If Pro-Ject's arm height adjuster is too much hassle, put a spacer between the cartridge and headshell, or put on a thicker mat. You could even cut out a few 12" circles of cardboard and stack 'em under your mat until you start hearing the shift in tonality.

07-13-08: Stringreen
Your question is rife with crazy making. I have discovered that the balancing act of using a bright component with a rolled off contrasting component introduces additional problems to the system.

Boy, you got that right! A couple months ago I got a Cambridge Audio 640P phono section. This is pretty linear, but on the fast and detailed side. The specs rate the RIAA curve accuracy out to 50KHz. Anyway, I tried feeding it to a Hafler Series 915 JFET class A line stage that was reputedly "designed to sound like a tube stage" and the result was just weird.

The speed and detail of the 640P somehow got turned into a sort of tubby, rubbery presentation, and I didn't get the full potential out of the 640P until I fed it into a similarly fast, linear, wideband line stage.