cart upgrade

The 17D2 is a nice cartridge, but I'm not sure it would be the best match for the JMW9. Probably a 20X would be a better match for that arm. I'd say that if you wanted to spend the full $1500, and could find a demo, discounted, or slightly used ZYX R-100 Fuji(retail $2k), you'd be really in audio Nirvana. It would match that arm nicely, and it is a totally killer cartridge.

But, getting back to reality, the Dynavector 20X would be nice, and affordable, and was packaged with some VPI tables at one time, if I remember correctly. Anyway, the 10x5 or 20X make good matches with the JMW9.

I agree with Kehut regarding the Koetsu Black.
At first I found it to be a slight improvement over my Glider II (Yes, I had one as well). It had the midrange magic of the Koetsu line, but the HF and LF extension was not as good as the Glider II. It did have a much lower noise floor than the Glider II however. (This was really a nice surprise, as I had thought the Glider had a low noise floor, that is, until I heard the Black!)
However, now that the Black has broken in (and breaking in takes about 100 hours, btw), I feel that the LF is better than the Glider, (the bass has more detail), and while the HF is still somewhat less than the Glider, it somehow sounds more musical, not as, for want of a better word, bright.
You might want to check out the review in HiFi+ a month or two ago. They seemed to really like it as well.
(At some point I am going to upgrade to the Koetsu Urushi, however, now that the Black has broken in so well, I am not in as much of a hurry. A Urushi can be had for about $1,900, which is just a little past your budget, but well worth it. A buddy of mine, with a HR-X just bought an Urushi, and his response was..."WOW, what a cartridge!")

My two cents worth. Good Luck!

thanks for the feedback. koetsu was one i wasn't even considering, but i might now. i've also considered the 20x, but wonder if it would be much better than the glider. twl, im wondering why you don't think the 17d2 might not be a good match for the jmw-9.

also, it wasn't the lyra lydian, but the arga that i was considering. any thought on that?

thanks again.

My response was aimed at the compliance of the 17D2 Karat, which is 12cu. The JMW9 does not have any of the stablilizing features of the later ".5 series" arms, and is shorter too. My correspondence with JMW users has shown that lower compliance cartridges do not mate well with the unstabilized JMW arms. There are even some instances that are in the archives here on Audiogon that show some members abandoning their Helikon cartridges because the JMW was showing some problems with them.

The 17D2, Lyra Helikon, and Lyra Argo are all 12cu compliance ratings. While the folks above are happy with their Koetsu cartridges in their longer ".5 series" arms, I'd be very cautious about putting a 9cu cartridge on a JMW9.

However, you can do as you wish. I am just pointing out what I have seen.

YMMV, maybe.

you can consider the Dynavector XX-2 in that budget, and it is a fine one.