What budget did you have in mind?
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Cartridges do not mate with arms. They mate with listeners, and phono stages. Mostly though they have to mate with you, and provide the sort of sound you want. With no idea what you want or how much you are willing to spend this is worse than throwing darts. And I only throw darts with beer, and you haven't brought any. So good luck! |
The Etna has a more "airy" sound to it and goes down deeper but the Art 1000 has a special euphonic/liquid character to it and it is lightening quick. Still has plenty of dynamics. At half the cost of the Etna I would consider it a very cost effective choice. My Sonic Labs would be another suggestion. |
The cartridge compliance matters or else you will deal with unwanted resonance. You need to know the effective mass of the tonearm. You must also know the mass of the cartridge plus the hardware, as well as the compliance value. Plug these numbers into the calculator.... https://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge_resonance_evaluator.php Upon doing this, compile a list of the cartridges that fall within the acceptable resonance parameters and choose from there. You will see that the resonance should fall somewhere between 8-11 or 12 hz to work well with your arm. Generally speaking, a low compliance cartridge works better with a high mass arm, and a high compliance cartridge works better with a lower mass arm. |
Hello, Van Den hul MC from Europe. $4k Its not sweet or boring sounding cart, it's has good detail and very good dynamics. The Hana SL is $750. This is one of those carts that is well under valued. As MC said in his fun way it comes down to sound on your system. Another option that comes into play is the phono preamp. Just like the preamp on your system the phono preamp adds the pop and color to your carts sound. Bottom line you need to match your cart to your system especially your phono preamp unless you are ok changing out that too. On the solid state side I would recommend Sutherland phono preamps. Also there is a new version of the Little LOCO called the Mark II. One big advantage is it now works flawlessly with the REGA line using a MC cart. Otherwise the most popular choice is the 20/20 which has an option of a separate linear power supply. It can handle MM and MC carts. My local shop in Chicagoland area is https://holmaudio.com/ They let you demo gear Saturday till Tuesday night. I think all Hifi stores should do this. Thank god mine local store does. As a side note: I just burned in my Puritan PSM156 power conditioner and Puritan ultimate XX power cord. Everything in my system has been upgraded a lot. It does take 2 weeks to burn in. I don’t care because the quality in sound coming out of my system has doubled maybe even tripled. I hope my recommendation above helps the are top notch carts at two different price points. |
I have the Hana SL on an Audiomods series 5 arm and heavily modded Rega table. Its a cartridge that has won over a lot of users and is very highly rated. Also check out their newer, higher end models and see how they interface with your phonostage and arm. There's a lot of Hanas out there now so chances are a user will have a similar setup to yours for comparison. Mine has been in service for 4 years.I may upgrade to the ML when this one wears out but it's so good I may just stick with the SL. Works well with my Musical Surroundings phono preamp. A friend has the same cartridge using a Sutherland phono pre but can't remember what table. It will come to me when I post this of course. He bought the cartridge on my recommend and is quite satisfied. His setup is quite different than mine but the cartridge sings with that as well. |
