Cartridge question

@rocky1313 - I see a couple of conflicting views in the posts above

• support for Sherical
• support for the more advanced stylus profiles

So it really depends what side of the fence you are leaning toward - DETAILS or MUSICALLITY

• a sherical profile is not able to get into the groove details as much as the more advanced profiles
  • lack of details can be interpreted as being more musical, which is why many people gravitate towards them
• BUT, the more advanced the profile, the more they are able to extract finer detials
  • BUT,they require a lot more attention to detail WRT cartridge allignment/setup
    • but using some type of mirrored protractor, you can achieve very precise allignment/setup
    • which will deliver stunning details and imaging
• a happy "medium" might be the Shibata profile or even an very good eliptical profile that provide musicality with improved details

For many years I used eliptical, then changed to a Denon D103 with a sherical styus profile, which delivered excellent musicality.

Then more recently I had the D103 modified by Soundsith with an Optimzed Countour Contact Line profile stylus and Ruby Cantilever. This provided a noticeble improvement in details and imaging but it took myself and a much younger pair of eyes about 2 hours to setup correctly

Of course, it's not that simple - with the more advanced profiles you will need a better phono stage, but I found the rewards were worth the investment

Going forward, I would rpobably opt for a Shibata profile, simply because it is not as demanding from an allignment/setup perspective and would still provide more details than the sherical stylus..

Hope that helps with your descision

Regards - Steve