Cartridges in general

Dear Jcarr, You are as always kind, polite and helpful.
But your 'help' is a mixed blessing. First of all I started
this thread to help you with YOUR idea to extend the MM
thread to more kinds of carts than MM and MC kinds only.
At high shool my best friend was , in my opinion, an
mathematical genius. But he was not able to imagine my
problems with math. He kept repeating: 'it is so easy,
you know'. I still have no idea how I passed math at high
school but my guess is that this had something to do with
my dad who was a bank director.
So many years later I am confronted with, uh, similar problem.
I see that my understanding of electronics is simialr to
my understanding of math. I hope you will not state:
'it is so easy, you know'.
I think that for us the mortals the best method of explication
is the comparison of what is known to us and
then from there lead us to the unknown (for us). After so
many years of participation in the MM and the MC 'subject
matter' we may be assumed to understand something about
those two kinds not only thanks to our better 'equiped'
co-members but also thanks to our own extended experience
with the mentioned kinds.
But I am sure that all our members are curious to learn
from you about and eventual try those for us 'exotic kinds'.

Kind regards,
Nikola

A few people on other forums have mentioned the Stax 'condenser' cartridges as being about the best cartridges out there - pretty warm detailed and dynamic. That said I hear that they have a channel imbalance issue - is that an inherent design fault or something easily cured/fixed. Out of interest - given that they were supposed to be so good why has nobody done them again???

I have a Micro Acoustic 630MP. I have had several of the various Micro Acoustic cartridges. Their being this 'electric condenser' type is another one of those that also fall in the "What Happened" puzzle! Not about the company itself, but to the design!
Regards,

Do the current cartridge manufacturers fall into different schools of basic design. Or do most of the manufacturers follow the same design principle but just use a different execution?

I am not talking about MM vs MI vs MC etc But say within MC cartridge design or within MM design.

Do Lyra, Dynavector and van den Hul as example follow the same design principle or are the designed very differently even though they are all MC?

Have a look at a Dynavector Karat, Dr T, and Ke Taikora - all very different.
Koetsus appear to all appear to follow a similar design - but they do keep changing materials and bodies
I think Van Den Huls vary depending on the cartridge series.
EMT's follow the same design.
It all depends on each manufacturer.