Cartridge recommendations?


Needs
High compliance
4-7 g weight
MM or HOMC
easily sourced
replaceable stylus
$100-200
balanced good sound
wrat

Showing 4 responses by chakster

You budget is a joke for a good cartridge, you need at least $350 for an OK moving magnet.

With $100-200 look for Grado Black or Audio-Technica if you want new. Don’t expect a miracle.

Grado is a high compliance and lightweight MI cartridge. I believe Grado DJ100i is cheaper than Grado Black. 
Needs
High compliance
4-7 g weight
MM or HOMC
easily sourced
replaceable stylus
$100-200
balanced good sound


Nagaoka MP100,110,200 compliance is VERY LOW for a moving permalloy (mm/mi) cartridge! Dynamic Compliance is listed as 6cm/dyne at 100hz, so at 10hz dynamic compliance of this cart is just 10cu which is very low compliance!

If you are looking for high compliance cartridges (as you said) stay away from Nagaoka.
@mr_m When OP looking for a HIGH COMPLIANCE cartridge your recommendation for a LOW COMPLIANCE cartridge for the same person is strange.

Lightmass tonearm is the reason for High Compliance cartridge.
If you do not follow OP’s request then you can recommend any cheap cartridge just because you have it. The value of such recommendation is ZERO.

From the Ortofon website:

“To maintain a cartridge/tonearm system resonance frequency within the acceptable range of 7 to 12 Hz, whereas 10 Hz recommended, it is necessary to choose a cartridge with the mass and compliance matching the tonearm”

“A phono cartridge with the compliance in the range of 5 to 10 µm/mN is considered as a very low compliance cartridge, a cartridge with the compliance in the range of 10 to 20 µm/mN is moderate compliance cartridge and a cartridge with the compliance value above 35µm/mN is very high compliance cartridge.”


If you made a mistake do not recommend to make the same mistake to others. 

What is excellent for you with tonearm/cartridge miss match may not be ideal for others. 

A low compliance (stiff) cartridges designed for heavy mass tonearms (heavy headshells).