Showdown: Your Favorite Cart for Classical?

Headsnappin, about the only thing I can come up with to answer that is that classical likely has the widest dynamic range of most recordings. Plus with natural sounds its a bit harder to fool the ear with regard to colorations. So the cartridge should be able to track that dynamic range, be uncolored and otherwise have the combination of output level bandwidth and detail such that the full dynamic range can be succesfully transduced.

But, as I mentioned above, any such cartridge that does classical justice will do the same for any other kind of music as well. Some of the ambient/trance/techno recordings in the last 10-15 years can challenge the best systems out there, so by **no means** is this something that is truly the purview of classical music only. Its just that its a good yardstick.

From my experience,my favorites..in no particular order(and Stingreen is absolutely correct)---

Transfiguration Orpheus(I own it....it is fabulous)...I'm basing my enthusiasm on vast experience with my friend's Orpheus(which I set up),because my analog rig is "down' until I iron out some damn gremlins.It does not seem to have any deficiency that I can "pick at"!

Lyra Titan i..my friend has it,and "HE" is a huge classical lover.Great cartridge!Does it all!!One particular aspect is stunning tonal color,where appropriate.

Air Tight PC-1...I have a few pals going "ape" over this,as of now.I have not heard it,but will eventually.

XV-1s..very dynamic,and superb(loved it).This "did" jazz to the max!Real bounce and swing to the presentation.The system it was in sure didn't hurt it.

Myabi..liked it alot,but it was a bit mopre restrained than the XV-1s,where I was able to A/B it on the same table.A tiny bit on the warm side,in direct comparison to the Dynavector,I felt(just opinion).

ZYX Uni...very detailed,but a tad light in bass.Superb though.Really great with stuff like "fingers on guitar strings",and incremental shadings.This was the cartridge that made me start to think about how I might "not" have done such a good job in my own arm/table's set up.

Allaerts,I did not hear the top model,but felt it to be a little too polite,for my tastes.

I've owned various Koetsus(four in all..Koetsu Black,Onyx,Onyx Sapphire,Urushi) and really enjoyed them.A bit pricey for what one can get elsewhere,but I have a friend who owns the Coral Stone,and both the Lyra Olympos and Titan i......He claims the Coral Stone "rules" on vocal music.He also is a huge classical LP collector.I trust his ears.

**** A VERY good cartridge,for not too much money(though far from cheap)is the "NEW Shelter 9000"....A classical loving,super critical) friend of mine has just gotten this,and is currently going "nuts" over it.I would not go on so much about it,but I know how "rediculously critical" the guy has been in the past.To the point of being almost arrogant,if he does not like something about your rig(and you thought "I" was too raw,two years ago?).So it kind of shocked me,that he likes this design SO much!Which he does.

ALL just opinion,so good luck

06-27-08: Atmasphere
Tracking ability and relaxed, transparent presentation without noise are things that are important for a cartridge used for classical music, although really those requirements are important for lots of other music too so I am of the opinion that what is good for classical is good for everything.

I absolutely agree. The cartridge that can keep the inner voices of an orchestra sorted out while presenting a cohesive whole, one that can make the big dynamic jumps for bombastic orchestral pieces, the one that presents the liquid, dynamic subtleties of a string quartet--also works for doing the same things in combo or big band jazz, and makes Dwight Yoakam and ZZ Top sound more visceral and alive as well.

There are some mighty fine cartridges mentioned in this thread, but down here at the trailer park, I'm enjoying a new Audio Technica AT150MLX mounted on an LPGear ZuPreme headshell on my Technics SL12x0 M5G. I got a noticeable improvement in all areas and in all genres compared to the DL-160 it replaced, and the carts I started with aren't even worth mentioning.

Also, the 8.3g AT150MLX mounted to the 12g ZuPreme headshell brings the arm/cart resonance to an ideal 10 Hz.

Dear Caspermao: IMHO all the cartridges you named and almost all the top " name " cartridges other people posted about are different in sound presentation but all of them are very good quality performers.

If any of those top cartridges is matched in the right tonearm/Phonolinepreamp ( everything the same. ) then it will be your " answer ": any of them.
Now if some one think that some of those cartridges ( other than Koetsu's ) are better with some kind of music over other kind of music IMHO I think that that people have an audio problem somewhere in their system other than the cartridge itself.
Here I agree with Sringreen.

As you can read you can/could have so many answers like so many different people/system posted here.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

I thought the same as Stringreen, that cartridges at thia price, should be able to do it all and make the coffee, answer the phone. It seems though the higher you go into the high end, the more specialised, the more optimised, for a particular source, genre of music etc, a system becomes. A tad depressing really. Having said that, having used a Koetsu Rosewood signature and Zyx Airy 3, the latter has a greater neutrality, that seems to suit classical better, though both are woberful.