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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
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.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
Mulveling,

"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."

Very interesting point. Would that apply to both high and low output MC's?
mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,774 posts
 
It depends on the size/strength of the magnet and its location, which is a matter of the cartridge's design more than high vs. low output. The Ortofon Kontrapunkt & Cadenza lines have their magnets positioned very low (relative to the stylus) and are unusable with the stock platter. The Benz Gliders all use a huge magnet, whether L M or H output, but then it's also located further away (vertically) from the stylus tip.

To be honest, you can probably get away with it on some MC models, but I'd think it likely there is at least some effect, and I wouldn't use the combination. The fewer things attracted to your cartridge that you keep around it, the better!
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