Cartridge Selection? Help


My ORACLE DELPHI V needs a new cartridge to mount on it's VPI JMW arm. The pre-amp is an SONIC FRONTIERS SFL2 SIG. or a MARK LEVINSON #25 with high-gain card.

Amongst others, I am considering the following:

Ortofon Rohmann MC
Lyra Helikon Reg. or SL
Crown Jewel Reference

These all sell for around 2k U.S. new or $600 - $800 "used".
My difficulty is in calculating the cartridge mass with that of the tonearm in order to obtain the optimum balance.

Would you analog experts point me in the best direction(s)!

Thanks, Colm
stereokarter
I own a shelter 901, which replaced a Lyra Helicon. I agree with Phild assesment of the Crown Jewel. My setup is a Graham 2.2, Oracle Delphy V. I found the Shelter had better bottom end, and warmer sound than the helikon, more to my licking.

I keeped the shelter and sold the Helikon, so that speaks for itself. The Shelter likes 100 ohm loading for transformers.

Enjoying the music in Puerto Rico. Good luck
Thanks, Phil & Sean. The fellow who sold me the Delphi also recommends the Shelter cartridges and I have viewed their site. They are included in the running. My question here is to obtain the correct balance and installment properties. I will look up the JMW spec's in the manual to-night.
If you're leaning towards the Crown Jewel, you may want to check out the Shelter cartridges out of Japan. I believe that it was dicovered that the Crown Jewels were nothing but Shelters with a nice paint job (and an additional $2000 on the price tag). You can buy them straight from Japan. I believe the cost approximately $700 for the 501 and $1300 for the 901, and they're both supposed to be quite good.
If you can post the effective mass of the arm and then list the mass of each cartridge and its' compliance rating individually, i can post what the resonance frequency "should" be according to theory. Of course, this will vary somewhat as there are production tolerances on everything that is man made. It will at least give you something to work with. Sean
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PS... I won't be home until late tonight, so don't hold your breath waiting for a response during the day. Hopefully, someone else will be able to help you out if you are able to find the pertinent information.