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
The arm you have is not going to hurt a better cartridge. AJ Conti the genius behind the Basis Vector arms ( sadly RIP ) IMO probably wrung the best sonics out of a Unipivot. Look, Mijo absolutism aside, many, many audiophiles w unipivots and high end cartridges are quite happy with the musical enjoyment they provide…. But let’s get real, most of the arms Mijo mentions are > $6 K and up…. |
Mike - First a compliment- excellent that you take time and care to acknowledge inputs by moniker / name. A wise practice….. i must adopt…. In general…i find unipivot arms vexatious… a very good friend says this about them : “ they are in a perpetual state of unsetting themselve up “.. I have heard a shockingly good VPI unipivot w Delos in a $100 k system…. so vexing…. So..eventually you could switch to VPI gimbal arm… Hopefully your local VPI dealer can assist w cartridge selection…. You certainly have many viable choices…. |
@lewm nails it with a slight modification..no type is superior without careful consideration of the ecosystem it lives in…. arm, table, isolation, wiring and phono preamp / sut with appropriate and variable loading. I suspect Mijo has never heard a properly setup Lyra Delos, but that is another matter… Actually, we live in a world of fantastic cartridge values…. for under $3k, you have enormous choice of great sounding and technically excellent cartridges… As others have already named…. Enjoy your search and the music Jim |
