Which cartrige would you go with?

I've only heard the Shelter so the following is theoretical.

The Helikon has been called cool by some. The ZYX and Shelter receive nothing but lavish praise. People who've heard both in the same system say they're equally good with only very subtle differences. The 901 is far less costly, why pay more?

With little ability to audition cartridges at this level, the above argument is what led me to choose the 901. FWIW, we're immensely pleased. No temptation whatsoever to try anything different.

Jfrech I do plan to upgrade tube`s in it next with a new cartridge I was going to try a different phono stage, first calling BAT and they said I would notice a major differance.So the one thing that made me go with the upgrade was it is more cost effective. It would sonicly sound like the vkp-10 w/o the step up transformer. I didn`t want to run a .2mv cartridge anyway so it was a good fit I do know most people who have the vkp-10 are pleased. I am really interested in the ZYX but knowing the shelter is a great deal. The RUBY H is not bad by any means but I just want to try something different.

cylinderking, I bet your updgraded p5 sounds great, I meant my comment to mean more, skip the p10 either update your p5 or go p10se. I thought the p5 was the "steal" in the linup...the p10 further refines it and ditto for the p10se...mostly more detail, more quietness, bigger stage...the tonality didn't seem to change much for me as I stepped up. If the p5 update sounds like a p10, I wish I would have done that 2 yrs ago! Good luck