Affordable Mono Cartridge For VPI Scout


I have a Shelter 501 with my scout/super platter, but I have several mono records and an interest in music from the 1950s. I am looking into getting a new arm wand to experiment. Shelter has a Mono cartridge, but the price seems ridiculous to me, at $1,750, plus I might as well take the opportunity to experiment with a different sounding cartridge. So far, I have been thinking about Lyra Dorian, Cartridge Man Music Maker, the Sound Smith Denon mods or one of the Benz mono cartridges. I'll upgrade my table when finances permit, probably a few years from now....looking for a cartridge that will be good for a long time, even with a better table (e.g, TW-Acustic). Any suggestions would be much appreciated. All the best, Mark
mcmprov
As I said before - Denons and the S/S VPI 9 arm is a great combination....Harry himself says that.
I really appreciate all of these comments. I had a conversation with Soundmith, but I'm still researching this issue. Since I have a Shelter 501 stereo cartridge (which the mono cartridge will be going up against), I'm leaning toward getting one of similar price/quality...the Soundsmith folks seemed to steer me towards the SMMC1 or SMMC2 as significantly better than the Denon (for more $$$). I had thought that Soundsmith might have steered me towards Denon mods, but they didn't. In this crazy world of high end audio, I'm thinking of roughly $1,000 or less (including discounts). I'm not sure...but my impression is that after this price range of $700 to $1000, one starts to get diminishing returns in cartridges...not sure. The most expensive thing to do in audio, however...I think is getting a case of upgrade-itis. I'd rather spend a little more than the Denon so that, within the next five years or so...I don't feel the need to upgrade as I move up to a better table. Seperately, I like the idea of getting an MM cartridge...just for the sake of getting a different sound...should be fun. Has anybody tried the Cartridge Man Music Maker?
Look at it this way, get one of the $175 cartridges. Then 1, you like it, you have saved $800. 2. you don't like it, you sell it as mint for $125, you have lost $50. I think those are good odds. Despite having a totally ridiculous amount of money invested in audio I use Denon and AT cartridges because I find they work very well and I am not convinced you get more with higher price. If spending more makes you feel better fine but sound quality and dollars spent are not always in direct correlation. Hmm, if enough people feel this way I should change the name of my business from Alternative Audio to Stan's Spa and stress the regenerative effect of audio expenditures.
miyajima premium mono is fresh and wide open compared to the denon 102 but it cost eight hundred more.
i have had the 102 and bought a zu 102 from someone on this sight and they were both were metallic and rounded compared to the miyajima.
The following is from the Audiotools.com site.
Pickups and stylii for the playback of Mono LP records
Modern stereo records have use a groove that is about 18µm, earlier mono microgroove records however had a groove width of around 25µm (usually slightly more than this or up-to 28µm), the difference is small enough to mean that you can usually play a mono LP with a modern stylus but for optimal results it's best to have a stylus especially cut for mono lp's and a true mono pickup (not rewired or a plain stereo pickup) and indeed a few companies make such pickups and stylii. Ortofon has the OM 10 Super repackaged with a 25µm stylus for the playback of mono LP's as the OM D25M, note that this is still a stereo cart and that this stylus is available separatly and will fit all OM, OM Super, OMP, TM and Concorde type pickups from the company. There are also SPU variants for this purpose and those are true mono pickups, namely the SPU Mono A, the SPU Mono GM, the slightly cheaper Classic SPU Mono CG25Di and the Classic SPU Mono CA25Di. Audio Technica has the AT-Mono 3/LP, it's a variant of the AT-33 like the 3/SP but has a full frequency range. Lyra offers the Helicon Mono MC pickup with a stylus for Mono LP's, it's a true mono unit and My Sonic Lab has the My Sonic Lab Eminent Solo which is a true mono MC unit as well. Expert Stylus has 25µ stylii that can be glued onto any cart (I belive they have variants for used with worn mono LP's as well). Note that while Grado offers at the least 2 mono pickups these use 10µm stylii and are thus usable with mono records but not optimal like the pickups here above, these are also not true mono pickups but rather stereo models wired in series.