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Benz Micro H2 or Grado???

My system:
Rogue M150's
CAT SL1
VPI TNT 3 w/ JMW 10 Tonearm.
Magnepan 3.6

My Question:

I had a +/- $300 Grado Cartridge which I broke (because I am an idiot).

The upside of the Grado was that I needed the output (4.0 mv). Now I am ready for a change. Which Cartridge do I get. I want to limit the question to Benz or Grado because Ibelieve the predominant winds shift around these two high output cartridges. Also....money needs to stay around $1000.

Thanks

ERIK
yesfan
soliver
67 posts
 
You may also want to consider the Cartridge Man's Music Maker MK3. It is a rebuilt tweaked high output MM in the body of a Grado and is extremely nice sounding for right around a $1000 new.

The owner of Audiofeil who sells the Music Maker on this site uses it on his VPI Aries2, and I going to assume he is using a JMW arm with it.

Might want to contact him to get his thoughts on the combo.
yesfan OP
10 posts
 
Thanks for all your posts!!! I went with the Benz and got it mounted yeterday.....

HOLY CRAP is this thing good!!!

Right out of the box the Benz made my system sound exponentially better.

Erik
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
Glad that you like it! I'll surmise that if you are this happy with the Benz H2, then you could be happier with the Benz L2 as the lower total weight of the L2 makes it a better tracker & more transparent. However, in your case you'd have to spend more money to use a L2 & that might not make you happy! (The CAT SL1 will not work very well w/o a step-up xformer for the L2. My experience! I lived with the L2 w/o a step-up for a few weeks. With step-up is better).
Someday, if you plan to spend $300 you could get the excellent K&K Audio (Lundahl xformer-based) step-up & exchange the H2 for a L2.
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