Advice needed on MC cartridges


I’ve an Ortofon Black 2M cartridge on my VPI Classic 2 turntable, It’s a moving magnet type cartridge with a Shibata stylus and cost about $700 when purchased. I could easily be wrong, but am under the impression that the Ortofon 2M Black is about as good as it gets with MM cartridges and if I wished to upgrade I’d need to be thinking about moving into a MC, moving coil, type.

So I’ve been trying to learn something about moving coil cartridges and what differences or improvements in sound quality might be obtained by using one. My integrated amp, a Luxman 507uX Mk2, has a built in phono stage and can play either type,

Generally speaking, how much more would need to be spent on a MC cartridge before a noticeable, or significant improvement, might be heard in sound quality over the Ortofon 2M’s performance? What improvements in performance might you obtain using one a better quality MC over the Ortofon 2M Black? And third, what MC cartridges might you recommend that would fit in performance and budget wise with a system composed of the above equipment plus Magico A3 speakers. My other equipment is a Marantz Ruby CD/SACD player and a Shunyata Denali Hydra power conditioner.

I’ve never heard a MC cartridge in use so would be interested in following your advice and recommendations to see if I can find a dealer or someone that might be able to demo one so I can hear what the differences might be in performance. Thank you for any responses or suggestions

Mike

skyscraper

Showing 1 response by 2channel8

I.ve never heard the Orfofon. Mt reference for an MM is the Sure V15 RS with a Jico SAS stylus, which is/was quite highly regarded. When I upgraded to MCs I went through the following progression on my Oracle Alexandria MK III/rewired Sumiko Premier MMT through a Musical Musical Surroundings Phomomena II phono stage:

Denon DL-301 II

Dynavector 10x3 (I was just curious)

Hana EL

Hana SL

Audi-Technica AT33PTG/2

The sweet spot for me (and the best of the lot by a large margin) is the Audio-Technica. Cheaper than the Hana SL and just a more profound, realistic, musical device. I recommend it highly and so do all these people.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/best-cartridge-youve-never-heard-of-the-audio-technica-at33ptg-ii.329374/

If it's too costly or you feel you need to invest in a phono stage and scrimp on the cartridge for now, I definitely think the Denon is a no-brainer. You'll find more folks in the DL-103 camp, but I went for the 301 for it's balance and refinement, but that was based on reviews I read; not A/B comparison.

Good luck and enjoy the search!