"Harder" cartridge recomendation

Halcro - you've over reacted. I have not criticised your system or equipment choice. You probably have an excellent system.
I have suggested that from my years of experience, including importing and installing high end equipment in many differing environments, that the hard reflective surfaces in your room would suggest that the environment may be more susceptible to mid to high frequency excitement. If this is the case it would influence your component choices and preferences. Do you disagree that stone and glass are reflective, particularly in the mid to upper frequencies.

Dover,
Yes.....polished stone and glass are reflective materials.
Every auditorium, performance space and listening room requires a blend of reflective and absorptive materials.
For drama.....the requirement for reflective surfaces to absorptive is different than for the performance of large scale orchestral works and this can be calculated quite accurately by acoustic engineers.
In my listening space....I have a 3.3mx3.5m heavily texture wool rug occupying 53% of the floor area. Semi-absortive cushioned furniture occupies another 20% of the floor area.
The wall behind the speakers is masonry and thus, generally reflective whilst one side wall is acoustic plasterboard with 50mm fibreglass insulation in the studwork on top of solid masonry. The rear wall is uninsulated plasterboard allowing for reflection of higher frequencies whilst allowing mid to low frequencies to pass through.
The one wall of thin(6mm) glass....allows the reflection of higher frequencies whilst passing all lower frequencies. The two sliding glass panels allow me to hear the effects of reflection by opening half the wall in a variety of infinite proportions.
There is a flat plasterboard soffit 2.7metre high(9ft) directly over the speakers and then a 5.7metre(19ft) cathedral ceiling which slopes down to the listening position.
Do you believe you can estimate what this room sounds like?
Oh.....and I've listened with the glass coffee table in and out and much prefer it in!
Am I wrong?

In defence of Dover I must confess to like his kind of humor. He should however, as is advisable reg. the Germans among us, say in advance that he is joking. If he wants to
stay out of trouble that is.

Halcro, I'll apologise, my 1st post could have been better phrased.
Yes, I do believe you are wrong if you prefer the coffee table in. In my experience large coffee tables in front of the listening chair generally "cut off" bottom end flow and air, literally truncate the bottom portion of the sound stage. Glass coffee tables tend to bounce high frequencies around and I always remove them. These are perhaps the some of the reasons why I gravitate to LOMC's, whilst you prefer MM's.

Nandric, thanks for the feedback. I do have German ancestry via Austria ( one of my forbears was given gold by the Habsburgs to travel the world to return a favour, he settled in New Zealand ) we may have a similar taste in humour.

Dover,
Apology accepted. Like Nandric I too often enjoy your humour and value most of your contributions.
I don't believe the glass table is accountable for my preference for MM cartridges?
I do think that I hear differently to most others.......and I am definitely in the minority with almost all of my peers in this preference so I have no problems in accepting that I am wrong.
I still can't listen seriously to digital and yet most (including Raul) either prefer it to analogue......or at least happily listen in equal measures?
This makes our hobby very hard to predict from an 'objective' point of view and making absolute judgments is fraught with danger?