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4-500 $ cartridge for Project Debut Carbon ?

I recently gifted a niece a Carbon Debut TT with mounted Ortofon Red in hopes of encouraging interest she has shown lately in Classical Music.
It sounds quite good esp. since she's running it through an old Yamaha A-1000 amp with an excellent phono stage(2 actually).Suppose the Caras phono IC i threw in helped as well.
I put on the old Fritz Reiner Chicago "Scheherazade",
which as many of you know, has a huge dynamic range, I was quite surprised the Project took it all in stride with just a slight hardening of strings on those tremendous crecendos.
As she has 94db eff speakers and the A-1000 is powerful I don't think it was clipping. I'm thinking perhaps a better cartridge might do the trick ? Nagoka MP 300 is first thing that comes to mind,but my mind is old and needs help.
schubert
maclogan
49 posts
 
The Project Debut is not a bad turntable - for the money. But it is not a great tt. In my experience an average cartridge on a great tt beats a great cartridge on an average tt any day.

So examine your sound quality and financial priorities.
schubert OP
7,386 posts
 
$ 400 with a decent cart is a fantastic deal for a TT that is not great or bad but is very good.

My experience is the opposite of yours.
mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,774 posts
 
For that setup I'd go only as high as an Ortofon 2M Blue or Bronze before upgrading the table. While a little bit of a gamble, you could go the used route (100-400 hours) and buy a better cart, if you're planning on upgrading the table later (soonish).

Don't even think about an MC with the Debut's stock metal platter; it will attract the MC's magnet and could crush the cantilever. You'll need the acrylic platter if you wish to play with MC carts, and your phono stage will need adequate gain & loading options.
mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,774 posts
 
Also -- I've played with a Debut Carbon, and could feel the motor's rumble causing vibration at the headshell. Not confidence inspiring. It's a nice enough entry-level package, but choose another table if you wish to scale the cartridge food chain beyond the 2M Blue/Bronze.
zenblaster
504 posts
 
With such good results from the Ortofon why look for something different?
Different is what you are going to get.
Better may not be in the dna of that table/arm.
You are getting more than you could have dreamed with that table. Rather than squeeze every last ounce of refinement why not move on to a better setup.
Better cartridges are going to be choked from their best performances by the limitations of the Project setup.
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