Cart for VPI Scout? Blackbird, Ruby2H, Shelter 901

If you have the ability to purchase a Shelter 901 at or near the price of the Blackbird, do that. Are you sure it's the 901 and not the 501? The 501 and the Blackbird retail for under 900.00. The 901 is quite a bit more new.

FWIW - You might want to give thought to the Dynavector 17D MKII in the same price range. The Dynas are excellent matches with the JMW arms. If you look at the VPI website, it is the line they sell...

It's a medium compliance, low output cart. While i am not running mine through a p75, I am running it through a phono stage that has switchable gain and loading. in my situation, I like the gain set to high and the load at right around 1000 ohms. Under a thousand, in my setup, is a little too "soft" and at 47K, a little too "brittle". I can choose loadings of 100,1000,10000,47K ohms.

Again, this is with my setup and my listening biases. YMMV.