Need help on cartridge recommendation, under 500.

Another vote for the Sonata! Just be careful, as they have a tendancy to pick up motor hum on Linns (the very inner grooves only.) This hum is very minor.

Hey, thanks to all!

A friend of mine also says the clearAudio Aurum Beta (?) is one of the best for under $500.?

Anyone out there heard it?

You should be able to find a slightly used or demo Grado Master($800) for $500 or less.The Master is suppose to be very close to the Grado Reference ($1200)

Hi Denf,

I have always been fond of the entire Grado line, but you were asking about the ClearAudio Aurum Beta, I have the current Aurum Beta (S) and I love it.

To begin, the bass is very pronounced (not boomy) but very detailed with strong, quick attacks. The channel separation is extraordinary. It doesn’t accentuate any portion of the audio spectrum over any other, nor does it emphasize any group of instruments over any others.

However, the final glorious revelation comes from the layers and layers of beautiful, clear music, which this unit seems to dig down deep and reveal; this is particularly evident in large orchestra and choral works.

Just a great cartridge for the money.

Regards, and good luck

AEW

This is the problem when it comes to phono cart's. I live in a major metro area (Wash. DC), and exactly NO local dealers could demo ONE $500 cart, let alone do a comparitive demo. How is one supposed to make an informed and personally satisfying selection when you can't hear the product? The only way I could do it was to call specialist dealers around the country, and try to glean a consensus opinion in my price range. I wound up buying the Benz Glider M2 from Bob at The Elusive Disc, for a little above your quoted price range w/trade-in. It seems perfectly competent, if not exactly inspiring, but I'll never know what the other choices might have sounded like. If any of the audio mags really wanted to help us out, one of them would take the initiative to do a round-up review of cart's by price point (ideally using multiple reviewers), and rank the results. I know the usual review ethic militates against this sort of thing, but cart's are a unique situation - you can't hear them at the shop, and you can't try them out at home first with return/exchange priviledges. In this case, expert opinion is just about all we have to go on!