Is There An "Absolute" Best Cartridge?

I agree with your implication that rapid evaluations are fruitless, DU. I take at least a month or two with each cartridge. That's why so far I have only gone thru the Azden and the Ortofon. I completely agree, at least for me, that snap judgements are worthless where novel audio gear is concerned. Moreover, I advocate going back and forth between the new and the familiar (i.e., an A-B-A comparison instead of an A-B comparison), because it has been proven that the brain is biased in favor of the new or novel sensory experience vs the old or familiar one. One of the virtues of having a couple of turntables is that one can keep a familiar cartridge up and running whilst listening also to new ones. Right now I am actually tired of auditioning the Azden but I am reluctant to go away from it until I have figured out what I think of it. I still have not got a bead on it, except to say it is good but certainly not perfect. And I am not ready to say it is categorically better than the Ortofon.

Dear Lewm: Fruitless?, IMHO the long/short time cartridge test is only different people capacity with different training and maybe different needs/targets and certainly not fruitless if you have the characteristics I'm talking about.
Anyway that fruitless that you are refering till today give over 2.1K posts on " that " thread where at least my posts were " fruitless " cartridge test but almost all the people that try those short time test recomendations agree with the cartridge performance when they test in their different audio systems.

Btw, your two months by cartridge that works so well for you just can't works for me: 100+ cartridges needs more than 17 years following your method ( that I'm not against it or argue against it. ) and that's with out returning to comparisons with cartridges already tested, if not then you could need around 20 years!!!!!

Different/same targets different ways to achieve it.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

I think that greatness of the cartridge will be evident from few first hours. Whether its great everyday cartridge it is a different matter. Great piece of art or sound of Stradivarius violin will impress you from very first minutes. Many cartridges are doing 2-3-4 things exceptionally well or they best suited for some music stile and content. Some cartridges are well balanced, but don't shine on anything is particular. We call them "neural", I guess. They are great, but they are not touching our feelings as deeply as more "specialized" cartridges during their glory moments. I stopped long ago to treat cartridges as do-it-all devices, but as musical instruments. Every one has its own strengths, weaknesses, "preferences" and time-to-boredom factor. Some trend is shaping up: MCs and IM for jazz, acoustic music and classics, MM for rock-n-roll.

Siniy123,

A typically thought provoking and interesting take on the performance of MCs and IMs compared to MMs. Something to consider and explore in the days ahead.

Thanks

Raul, You have an endless reservoir of self-confidence. This will overcome any amount of self-doubt. But you certainly have changed your mind quite a bit over the course of those 2000+ posts that you have in part stimulated. This is your perfect right, but it does illustrate my point, so I won't retract it. One reason I take so long to evaluate a cartridge is that I only can listen for about 5-10 hours/week. I think you are able to put in much more time per day or week, so of course you can move faster and still do a good job of it, most of the time.

Siniy, You wrote, "greatness of the cartridge will be evident from few first hours". I could not agree more, and its shortcomings will be evident only after a longer audition and careful comparison to some in-house standard, IMO. However, I do agree with you on the idea of the cartridge as musical instrument. This is precisely where I am going with my long audition of the Azden, comparing it to either the Koetsu Urushi (lush, romantic) or to the Colibri (speed and detail), mounted on other turntables. If you accept that concept, then of course there can be no absolute "best" for all purposes.