MC versus MM. Which to choose.



I am pretty much a vinyl newbie so bear with me. What are the benefits and drawbacks of both of these types of cartridges. Is there a clear better choice for someone just getting into vinyl? The MM seem to be less costly but how does it compare sonically? Take for instance the Clearaudio Concept cartridge. The MM retails for $200 while the MC retails for $800. Is the MC version a better sounding cartridge?
128x128lostbears
"I like or am fond of my TT's a,b,c...n'' is a different proposition from ''I need the TT's a,b,c...n''. Cheating seems to be a relational 'concept' in the sense of cheating
sombody else. As such it has a very negative connotation.
But the most cases are about cheating our self and there is
no sense in attributing negative assumptions to this kind
of 'cheating'. Ie : mind your own buseness. According to
the most fundamental rules of the private Law anyone is entiteld to spend his own money as he may prefer. In principle that is.

Regards,
Lew, regarding your question;
Which of the MM/MI cartridges did you audition in your own system? Just curious.
i'm at work, from my memory there was an Ortofon ML20 (or something like that), and an Azden of some sort, then an additional one. i gave the Ortofon to a friend, and still have the other 2.

tonght when i get home i'll get the details on the exact models. Raul very helpful to me in getting these and they did perform as advertised.

i would have no trouble living with any of these as my 'go to' cartridge.
Thanks for taking the time to respond, Mike. For what it's worth, those two just happen to be among the few that I also have auditioned. The top Acutex's and the top Stanton/Pickerings are better, FWIW, and not that I think this will send you out to look for either. Not to say that the Ortofon M20FL or M20E (whichever one you tried) and the top Azden are chopped liver.
Lew,

the 3 MM cartridges were the Ortofon M20FL you mentioned which i gave away, the Azden YM-P50VL, and the Empire 1080LT....both of which i still have.

i was tempted to keep my Dobbins/Loricraft/Garrard 301 for 'messing' around with stuff like these cartridges. then you need another shelf, arms, another phono stage, etc., etc. and it does add quite a bit of hassel to access things and makes the daily ease of use for the system more problematic. it's easier to have multiple RTR tape decks. they are all on wheels so i can just move them out of the way when i need to. just another aspect of my decision tree.
Speaking as someone who has designed cartridges, phono stages and tonearms, my experience is that the choice for best sound between MM and MC depends largely on the phono stage and the tonearm and to a lesser extent, the turntable.

The tracking ability of a cartridge depends greatly on the tonearm that it is installed in, and the sonic performance of a cartridge can be made or broken by the phono stage. Regarding both tonearms and phono stages, I have found MCs to be considerably more demanding of the equipment that they are paired with. Phrasing that observation slightly differently, you could say that MMs/MIs make it easier and cheaper to design a phono stage or a tonearm that sounds relatively good.

Although I have heard many MM/MIs and rather like some of them, I have heard no current or out-of-production product that has made me think that I must add a similar MM or MI to our cartridge lineup.

OTOH, I do believe that MM/MIs have the possibility of conferring certain key advantages over MCs for a cartridge designer who has very specific design goals in mind.

hth, jonathan carr