My perception of the prevailing consensus of those members having particularly extensive analog experience is that in general a top notch turntable and tonearm coupled with a merely good cartridge will handily outperform a top notch cartridge coupled with a merely good turntable and tonearm.
But in this particular situation we are not dealing with generalities, we are dealing with a very specific set of circumstances, including cost constraints that appear to preclude a significant upgrade of the turntable/tonearm, at least in the near term. Although I have no specific familiarity with the present Pro-ject turntable, under the circumstances I would ignore general philosophy, and repeat my earlier recommendation of the A-T 150MLX + Blue Jeans LC1 (both of them together, which would cost a total of around $520; you might also need a plain piece of insulated hookup wire for the ground connection).
I used to own the initial version of the Grado Reference Sonata. It was OK, and did nothing that was blatantly wrong, but I strongly suspect based on inputs that have been provided here by particularly knowledgeable members that the 150MLX would be much more of an upgrade. Also, keep in mind that Grados hum in some turntables, due to the lack of shielding in their wood bodies. I have no particular knowledge of the Dynavectors that have been discussed.
If you later see fit to upgrade the turntable, I would not expect that it would be difficult to find a suitable upgrade that would be compatible with the 150MLX. You would just want to avoid tonearms having particularly high effective mass, that are particularly designed with low-compliance low output moving coils in mind.
Finally, if my earlier comments about the 150MLX came across as overly cautionary, that was not my intent. Pretty much everything I said along those lines applies similarly to all of the other cartridges which have been suggested. I was just being thorough in expressing a SLIGHT uncertainty about the tonearm/cartridge matchup, given as I say that I have no specific experience with either product, and I am therefore not in a position to vouch for the combo with 100.00% certainty.
Regards,
-- Al
But in this particular situation we are not dealing with generalities, we are dealing with a very specific set of circumstances, including cost constraints that appear to preclude a significant upgrade of the turntable/tonearm, at least in the near term. Although I have no specific familiarity with the present Pro-ject turntable, under the circumstances I would ignore general philosophy, and repeat my earlier recommendation of the A-T 150MLX + Blue Jeans LC1 (both of them together, which would cost a total of around $520; you might also need a plain piece of insulated hookup wire for the ground connection).
I used to own the initial version of the Grado Reference Sonata. It was OK, and did nothing that was blatantly wrong, but I strongly suspect based on inputs that have been provided here by particularly knowledgeable members that the 150MLX would be much more of an upgrade. Also, keep in mind that Grados hum in some turntables, due to the lack of shielding in their wood bodies. I have no particular knowledge of the Dynavectors that have been discussed.
If you later see fit to upgrade the turntable, I would not expect that it would be difficult to find a suitable upgrade that would be compatible with the 150MLX. You would just want to avoid tonearms having particularly high effective mass, that are particularly designed with low-compliance low output moving coils in mind.
Finally, if my earlier comments about the 150MLX came across as overly cautionary, that was not my intent. Pretty much everything I said along those lines applies similarly to all of the other cartridges which have been suggested. I was just being thorough in expressing a SLIGHT uncertainty about the tonearm/cartridge matchup, given as I say that I have no specific experience with either product, and I am therefore not in a position to vouch for the combo with 100.00% certainty.
Regards,
-- Al