New cart for under 1K

David, as much as I am enjoying my Dynavector XX-2 mk II cartridge, I don't think that it will help to hide your JM speakers brightness. The Dynavector itself is not bright, but it is not rolled off either, if used with bright gear, the brightness will come shining through. I have long been a fan of soft dome speakers, Dynaudio, Verity, ProAc, etc. I learned to avoid metal dome tweeters over 20 years ago.

If I were you, I would change speakers first. If you cannot change speakers, I would advise against getting a Dynavector cartridge. To control brightness, you would be better off with a Transfiguration, Koetsu, or wood-bodied Benz cartridge, IMHO.

I do not know which Harbeth speaker you are considering, but if you sell your Focals for $2,000 and spend another $1,000 you can buy a used pair of Harbeth compact 7 es3, or Proac 2.5 for even less.

"The Focal's are very accurate and tend to be bright in the highs. Brightness is what I am trying to avoid. I've found the highs to be too harsh for my liking, especially with vocals."

I see why you're immediately targeting the cartridge given your budget, but look at what Jperry said above as you could potentially fix the real source of the problem with little/no additional net $$$ outlay. I think you're making a big mistake trying to fix this through the cartridge. By definition you'll have to buy something that's rolled off in the highs, and since you're planning on upgrading your speakers in a year you'll very likely be shopping for another cartridge again in a year (at additional expense). Plus, I don't see anything else in your system that points to brightness -- quite the contrary (including the Grado) -- although I didn't catch what you're using for cables/interconnects that may also be contributing here.

Sounds like you arrived at this issue by buying on price and expedience rather than focusing primarily on sound and, just as importantly, system synergy. Time to stop that. Don't polish the turd here -- SOLVE THE PROBLEM and be done with it. You may well find with the right speakers you may not feel the need to upgrade anything else, at least for a while. Something from Joseph Audio (there's a nice pair of RM25XLs for sale right now that wouldn't cost much more than what you could sell your Focals for),PMC (nice pair of twenty.23s up for sale too), or Nola are a few that jump to mind that are probably more refined in the frequency range causing your problem. At least find a way to audition something like these in your system before throwing money at other components.

Really sorry if I'm sounding preachy here, but this strikes me as a situation where taking the quick, easy bandaid approach would be a mistake when there are options to do it right the first time. Best of luck, and please keep us posted on whatever you decide.

Let's simplify if possible. Do you have any other sources. If so and they are also "harsh" in the highs than it is somewhere else in your system and I agree with those that you need to change out something other than your cartridge. (Probably your speakers as beryllium tweeters can be an "in your face" presentation). OTOH if other sources are merely "bright" and not "harsh" than the problem is the character of the highs not the quantity. (Probably the cartridge, Grado's are not known to be aggressive in the highs but IMO they do not have any delicacy or sweetness to the highs).

Bottom line, more input is needed.

Siox/Jjrenman,

I agree with both of you, I've had difficulty coming to the conclusion that it's my speakers, but I think you are correct. The rest of my system is a McIntosh 7205 5-channel amp that I'm only using 2 channels presently. I have two pre's, a Meridian 565 which I am not using and a McIntosh C32 which is old and should be replaced. I don't think it's the Mac gear that's causing the harshness. I really think it's the speakers. The Focal's do not have beryllium, those were the BE models and were 2K additional. I have the titanium tweeter model. My old JBL's had titanium tweeters as well. I am sure of one thing, I am never buying speakers with metal tweeters again!