Best "P" mount cartridge?

Cheapmike, the greatest improvement in sound I've achieved with my SL10 was changing what it sat on. The rack it sits on is a deluxe Room Tunes rack which has shelves that are around an inch thick with brass spikes on the bottom and sitting on a concrete floor. This is a solid stable platform, but here is what made the huge difference. A Townsend Seismic sink for it to sit on (an improvement), then add three 1 1/2 inch aluminum spikes with brass cups under the Seismic sink which results in a major improvement (wow), like twice as good as before. For a couple hundred bucks it is money well spent.

Rhljazz: Oddly enough this simple thing I have never tried! Will try various stuff before going whole hog for the Seismic Sink. Earlier today picked up a used Quicksilver Audio phono pre to replace the one in my integrated amp. Will tube-roll with non-NOS, and maybe the easier capacitors. Will report back in a week or two on results of both. Thanks for the advice, Mike

There WAS a V15LT P-mount version of the V15. I had one in my Technics SL7. Sounded good . .

But it was not an MR.

The Panasonic MC310 that may have come with your turntable is a decent moving coil cartridge especially if it is mated to one of the aftermarket transformers that you see on EBay (like Klangfilm, Beyer etc) with a 100 ohm matching input impedence.

But I have used s few of the turntables you hmentioned with a variety of P-mount cartridges and got excellent results. My favorite was the Stanton 737 Stereohedron model. I've also tried the Radio Shack V15 body that accepts the Shure V15 MR stylus assembly but it sounds a tiny bit edgy compared to the Stanton. The ADC PX-40 and PX-50 come in P-mount styles and they are very good, perhaps a bit better than the Shure V15 MR in the upper-middle but not as good in the low end. Pickering also made a P-mount body that had a Stereohedron stylus made for it (I think it was the 4000) but the Stanton "floating Stylus" design seemed superior to the Pickering even though they were associated companies.

In my opinion it all comes down to the stylus tip design. If you can find any really good P-mount cartridge body with either a Gyger, Van den Hul, Micro Ridge, MicroLine or Stereohedron stylus tip, it can produce top-of-the-line sound. I've never heard an AT ML cartridge in a P-mount but having heard many of them in standard mounts I'm sure they would be great.

I have cartridge shoot-outs with audiophile friends all the time. To me the phono cartridge is the most difficult part of the audio chain to make well. It is the equivalent of making a fantastic sounding, wide dynamic range One-Way speaker system. A few electrostatics come close but even they have major flaws. But I can name a dozen truly great phono cartridges. Many of my friends are astounded/upset when they realize they prefered a Stanton 981 Stereohedron cartridge over a Koetsu Rosewood Signature, or they Liked the Audio Technica 440 ML over the ZYX Airy3. Often the choice is due to one reasonably-priced cartridge having superior vocal/violin range performance compared to an outrageously priced cartridge, but it shows there can be some great cartridges out there in the P-mount style.

This being the case you should be able to find a high end Stanton cartridge with a Stereohedron stylus in P-mount. Of course barring that just do what I do and take a cartridge with a good motor system and have Van den Hul USA put a VdH1 stylus on it with either a boron of sapphire cantilever. The boron-VdH1 system (from VdH USA) could be mounted on a Panasonic/Technics 310 moving coil cartridge for much less than $300 now-a-days. I also sent one out to Australia for a less expensive aluminum-Vital combo and it was about $200 total. As long as the motor works properly, getting a decent moving coil retipped with a higher-end stylus design can make all the difference.

While the stylus really does make a huge difference it can't make an Ortofon MC 10 into an MC 15MkII or an MC 15 into an MC 20 etc. But it will make any elliptical stylus cartridge sound worlds better by just putting a "Line Contact" style stylus on it. Good luck.