Best cartridge for JMW 12.5 tonearm?

The UNIverse is an outstanding cartridge, though Doug Deacon will tell you the copper wired UNIverse is better than the silver wire.

Almost. The copper is more to my taste and, perhaps, to the taste of most who've had the opportunity to compare them.

The copper provides cleaner, crisper more lifelike transients, particularly on leading edges. This gives the music a lifelike jump and pace.

The silver slightly burnishes leading edges, which imparts a more relaxed, less physically present tone.

Copper says Po-Tay-Toe, silver says pO-tAH-tOE. ;-)

I have a VPI 12.5 tonearm with two armwands. Over the last two years I have used a Benz LP Ebony, a Koetsu Urushi Vermillion, a VdH Colibri XGW, a VdH Colibri XPW, a VdH Condor XGM, a ZYX UNIverse silver wire/silver back, and briefly a Miyabi 47th. All of the cartridges performed very well. The Benz I found to be decent, but nothing exceptional. The person I sold it to has been very happy with it, however. The Urushi has that marvelous midrange, but ultimately I found the cartridge to be colored and sold it. I loved the Colibri XGW but found it to be a bit lacking in bass slam. I then ordered the Condor XGM which had better bass, but loss some of the three dimensional magic of the Colibri. I then had the Colibri remanufactured by VdH switching from gold to platinum coils. This was a significant improvement in smoothness and delicacy. The UNIverse is an outstanding cartridge, though Doug Deacon will tell you the copper wired UNIverse is better than the silver wire. I found the Miyabi to be a little more on the HiFi/detailed side of reality compared to the Colibri and UNIverse.

In my system, I routinely swap the Colibri, UNIverse and Condor in and out of the system. That's the nice thing about the 12.5 - switching armwands takes 5 seconds with another 5 seconds spent to dial in VTA. Though at the moment I have the Condor mounted on a Schroeder Reference, a ZYX mono cartridge mounted on one VPI armwand and the UNIverse mounted on the other.

I have not heard the Titan-i, Allaerts, or Dynvector XV-1s in my system - though I would like to. If you buy the Colibri off the web in Europe, they are much cheaper than the UNIverse.

Of course, it all comes down to personal preferences and until you hear the cartridge in your system over an extended period of time you really won't know what your preferences are. I bought the LP Ebony, Urushi, and Colibri used off of the web. I sold the LP Ebony and Urushi for almost what I paid for them. The ability to hear these cartridges in my system was well worth the small cost differential.

scousepasty. what a name!

Dear Ceilalex: I know that VPI's Harry use the Dynavector XV-1 like one of his cartridge reference and I can tell you that the XV-1 a top performer and really good with the kind of music you like.

I owned the Clearaudio Discovery and the Insider Gold, both very good cartridges, I never heard the Clearaudio Titanium but I can see that Scousepasty ( with the same tonearm you have ) is very satisfied with it, so his advise about is a heavy recommendation.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Ceilalex,

Great phono stage. Since you have the gain and impedance flexibility to handle most LOMC's, it seems right to choose one of those, especially for jazz and classical.

Do you know your arm's effective mass? I can't find the specs on VPI's site.

I have recently replaced my ClearAudio Discovery with a ClearAudio Titanium in my HR-X with 12.5 arm and found it to be an excellent performer playing jazz and classical, even more so on the heavier vinyl pressings.
When playing older MOR records or light vinyl pressings I prefer the Koetsu Urushi Black.

Thanks for the post Raul. I have a Klyne 7PX3.5 phono preamp. I am mainly listening to jazz and classical.

Dear Ceilalex: Which phonolinepreamp you own? and whih are your music sound priorities?

Both answers are important for our advise to you about.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.