The greatest MM and MI cartridges ....

My pick would be the Grace F9E.

There is a lot of them. The Audio Technica AT 15sa or 20ss. The Azden YM-P50Vl. The Ortofon M20fl. The Signet TK7 or 10 series. The Empire 2000E/4000D series. The Astatic MF-100. The Garrott Bros. P77. The Technics EPC 100CM MK4. The previously mentioned Graces. I could go on and on. All that I have mentioned would give any, and I do mean any MC a run for the money, beating most of them. The cartridges that I have mentioned can be found hear on this site for $50 to $300. It's depressing to know that I currently own a $3500 MC (Benz Micro Ruby III), that can only sightly better a couple of the cartridges that I mentioned. I hav other MC's that can't beat ANY of them!

Mofo and Griff...., are most (all?) of the carties you listed still being made today?? If so, how much do they generally cost?? Griff... mentioned prices ranging from $50 to $300. I assume that's used.

Bifwynne,

None mentioned are in production today. All can be found on this site or e/bay, either used or NOS. If you want to know of a MM that is currently being manufacture today and is as good as or better than any of the ones mentioned, then get yourself a Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood. New, around $1000. Used, less than half that. I bought my 3rd Virtuoso used with a new Sound Smith retip for $400 last month. This cartridge will take a back seat to NO one. Just amazing!

Griff..., Thanks -- been there and done that. I've owned the CA Virtuoso and Maestro. The Virtuoso is very very good, BUT the Maestro at MSRP of $1250 is noticeably better -- if you can believe it. I recall one reviewer said the Maestro was the best MM on the market today. The open question was whether it was worth spending twice as much on the Maestro as the Ortofon 2M Black???

Well . . . I've owned them all. I originally mounted the Virtuoso and Maestro on my rebuilt Thorens TD 160. I thought the Virtuoso and Maestro sounded just great. I decided to take the plunge into "serious" vinyl and sold the Thorens and bought a VPI Classic. The Classic is built like a tank. Problem is the da*n JMW uni-pivot is a PITA. None of the cartridges I mention above were compatible with the JMW arm, possibly because the JMW arm uses an unstabilized uni-pivot architecture.

I moved on to the Sound Smith VPI Zephyr which works well with the Classic/JMW set up.

This post is obviously about vintage MM and MI carties that withstood the test of time. Notwithstanding my troubles with the Classic/JMW set up, I surmise that the CA Virtuoso and Maestro, and Ortofon 2M Black will join the list of venerable cartridges too, if they haven't already done so.

Griff..., do you think the Virtusos with SS retip sounds better than a stock Virtuoso out of the box??