Cartridge upgrade for vintage TT - MM or MC?

Any vintage MM from the "cartridge of the month" in our old thread, your digital will always be completely different until you will upgrade the turntable and tonearm, not only the cartridge. it is also depends on the record pressing. You need a high resolution MM cartridge like AT-ML150 OCC or at least something like Victor X-1IIe to make the hell out of your records. With more money there are many more killer MM or MI cartridges like Grace, Stanton etc. Make sure to stay away of the low compliance MC cartridges with your current technics tonearm and phono.

Those carts you mentioned, are they vintage? I don't really see any available anywhere.

What about something like the AT VM540ML? 

I was also looking at the Grado Silver/Gold or the Otofon 2M blue in the same price range. 

It's difficult to know which one my ears will like better not being able to audition them with my setup. 

Dear @elangley01 The today AT cartridges are really good and the Ortofon too. Even you can look to the all new options that Sumiko has in its new cartridge designs.

You can't wrong with either inside your budget and with new today cartridge designs you have the warranty of the manufacturer for any problem you can have that I think you will not.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Here's your problem:

The midrange is nice but the treble in particular is lacking. Compared to my digital source it sounds dull and lifeless

Enjoy the midrange. At this extreme budget end of analog you should be happy the midrange is nice. Last thing you want is records that sound like digital. Don't put legs on a snake.

Well i don't necessarily want it to sound digital, but i would like it to have some sparkle to it. 

My other option is to wait a bit and see about upgrading to a new TT like a Pro-Ject DC or some other similar priced "audiophile" TT. 

Or is the vintage table I have now always going to be better? Adjusted for inflation the prices are in the same ballpark, but is vintage direct drive just inherently superior to new belt drive in the same range? 

It depends on the turntable design, many vintage turntables are crap too, some of them are amazing in comparison to the more expensive turntables made today. I am using only vintage turntables, i hate belt drive turntables (no matter new or old). But i like all my vintage direct drive machines.

You can always buy new Technics SL1200G or GR to save your time, but if you're really into vintage analog gear then nothing wrong with it! 

So here's something interesting. In my search for new TTs in the same price range I came across some good reviews of the Fluance reference series.

The RT82 ships with the Otofon OM 10 and lists the following specs:
Tonearm effective weight: 28.2g
Headshell weight: 10g
Cartridge weight: 5g
Cartridge compliance: 20

Just for giggles I put these into a resonant frequency calculator and got 5.4 (!)

That can't be right, can it? Am I missing something?

I’m not familiar with the pearl cartridge but if it sounds dull, try to raise the vertical tracking angle a little (no more than 1/16 of an inch) to see if it adds any sparkle. Generally if a cartridge sounds dull & muddy, the VTA is set to low. Again, I’m not familiar with the pearl, so it could be the cartridge. Just a suggestion.

Forget MM cartridges! None of them sounds as good as even the venerable Denon 103 (and its variants)! These have always been my go-to choice for a budget price! When I wanted to add a NEW TT to my collection of vintage TTs I bought a Pioneer PLX1000 direct-drive, Denon 103R and a vintage Denon step-up transformer (SUT). Cost ($700 + $300 +$200) = $1200 for a rig that easily competes with far more costly gear! 

The Pioneer PLX1000 is the hands-down winner in the sub - $1K TT category! Ditto for the Denon 103 mc in below - $500 cartridges!

Forget MM cartridges! None of them sounds as good as even the venerable Denon 103 (and its variants)!

This is funny, ever heard Denon DL-107 MM that was a broadcast standard before they designed DL-103 MC ? Same brand, just MM, no need to pay for SUT.

If you like conical stylus and low compliance over a decent MM/MI design then you’d better listen to AM radio (Denon was designed for broadcast in the 60s). The OP asking for high resolution, not a rolled-off oldschool sound of Denon DL-103.

The problem with your DL-103 is that you do not even use it on the right heavy tonearm, instead, you’re using it on lightweight tonearm designed for MM (or mid compliance MC).

Another problem with DL-103 is a short life span of the conical stylus (300 hrs) and the cost of re-tipper job, who will glue a new tip on aluminum cantilever. This is a degradation, because the original tip does not have a glue and was pressure fitted. To get equal sound the re-tipper must change the whole cantilever. This is a waste of time and money.

Even a much better LOMC cartridges can’t beat some killer MM or MI.

The MM/MI always cheaper, stylus is user replaceable, life span of the tip can be 600 or even 2000 hrs (depends on the profile).

Also the OP does not have an arm for low compliance MC anyway.

All the typical MM cartridges (Shure/Stanton/AT/Ortofon ...) have coil inductance measured in HUNDREDS of milli-henries! This rolls off the high frequencies and slows transient response. Hardly what can be called "high fidelity"!

The MI cartridges (moving iron - Grado/SoundSmith/B&O) are much better with far lower inductance. And consequently much better high end and faster transients. They are certainly competitive with MCs. I have several Grados. In fact back in 1977 I was one of the first to hear and use Joe Grado's new Signature 2 ($500 - gasp!). At that time the Koetsu was $1000 (double gasp!). And was superior in sound quality!

The PLX1000 has a medium mass arm. It works fine with the low-compliance Denon mc. I have other TTs with high-mass arms (Empires) that are certainly suitable for mc cartridges. Plus also two Fidelity Research arms designed by the late Ikeda-san (FR29 and FR54) expressly for MCs.

I don't believe in re-tipping. When my Denons get too worn I can trade them in for new replacements. And they can certainly go beyond 300 hours by use of Stylast. 

I have no idea how a conical tip with 2g tracking force can last more than 300-400 hrs not being worn out, elliptical can be used a bit longer, but they are all inferior compared to a proper profiles like Shibata, LineContact, MicroRidge ... that comes with MM and MI cartridges (some of them also have much better cantilevers).

I have never experienced roll-off with MM or MI from Stanton or AT top models, but i pretty much experienced a roll-off with SPU cartridges (just like oldchool Denon). MM is a choice of industry professionals, let me remind about this article again. Since they are vintage cartridges (from the 70s/80s) we can’t find much info about them, except for an old press like TAS etc.

Denon require not a Mid Mass arm, but a Superheavy mass arm like FR-64s (over 30g). So you need an iron headshell and a brick instead of the regular counterweight on your Pioneer turntable.

In fact i have Grado Signature XTZ (MI) right now on my Denon DA-401 tonearm and this particular Grado was the best from the founder of the company. And yes, the price was $750 in the 80’s. I like this cartridge, but it can’t surpass some of the very best MM from AT, Victor or Stanton.

I have submitted a technical inquiry with Fluance to have them explain their cartridge matching to me.

Maybe they just don't think resonant frequency is a big deal? The agent I spoke with said the specs are correct.

@elangley01,

You can learn a lot from guys here on agon like, millercarbon, chakster and rauliruegas. They have posted so much helpful information, tips, product data, etc, that it may help if you google your question and do your research there first, you will be surprised with how good and straight forward the many responses you will get from those same fellows. Sometimes it gets a little tedious for them and us to write the same thing over and over.

For example here are a few simple turntable upgrades I learned from rauliruegas:

@bstatmeister,
Sorry for coming to the party so late. I really have come to enjoy my Shure V15VxMR MM cartridge with the JICO SAS VN5xMR stylus and I wanted to share this with you. And you must read Raul’s thread.

I tricked out a $70 ’antique shop’ Technics SL-D2 direct drive turntable and a $200 Pioneer PL-600 direct drive turntable (the silver one) and upgraded the headshells with Ortofon LW-800S and LW-7N headshell wires, rewired the tonearm with KAB SuperFlex and Cardas tonearm wires, upgraded the cartridge and stylus with the Shure V15VxMR cartridge and the JICO SAS VN5xMR stylus. (That I switch out) And hardwired the phono interconnects with the very inexpensive but value added Blue Jeans Cable LC-1’s with the preamp output interconnects being Blue Jeans Cable LC-1’s also.

As far as playing ’albums’ I believe the best upgrade I made from a pure sound standpoint was adding a Parks Audio Budgie Tube Phono preamplifier at $399 with a pair of NOS Telefunken E88CC/6922’s at $454 after selling my $1748 Pro-Ject Phono Box RS MM/MC and the companion Pro-Ject battery powered Power Box RS power supply that I fortunately sold for a little above cost.

After adding the Parks Audio Budgie Tube Phono preamplifier I was amazed at the transparency, depth, wide soundstage, and dynamic range of sound. The Parks Audio Budgie Tube Phono preamplifier is a single ended Class A tube circuit. See the reviews.

Now I’m on the hunt for the ’mysterious’ Shure Ultra 500 cartridge.

Ahh...The dreaded disease of ’upgraditis’.

I hope my post here helps you out some.

Please see here:

https://hometheaterreview.com/shure-v15-phono-cartridge-reviewed/
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-shure-v15vxmr-revisited-what-a-great-phono-cartridge.38495...

tyray

And since you mentioned your Schiit Mani phono preamp, I’ve since upgraded my phone interconnect cable with shielded and unshielded Duelund 20GA wire with KLEI™Absolute Harmony Plugs, speaker wire with Duelund 12GA and phono mat with GEM Dandy rubber cork compound mat.

I’m a Technics direct drive turntable guy too and I’m waiting for them to get rid of the internal phono preamp in the new Technics SL-1500C turntable and put those resources somewhere else on that deck.

The digging for the right information and applying it is the fun stuff. It just takes some time to digest all this ’stuff’.

So here’s something interesting. In my search for new TTs in the same price range I came across some good reviews of the Fluance reference series.

The RT82 ships with the Otofon OM 10 and lists the following specs:
Tonearm effective weight: 28.2g
Headshell weight: 10g
Cartridge weight: 5g
Cartridge compliance: 20

Just for giggles I put these into a resonant frequency calculator and got 5.4 (!)

That can’t be right, can it? Am I missing something? ...

... What about something like the AT VM540ML?

I was also looking at the Grado Silver/Gold or the Otofon 2M blue in the same price range.

You have to calculate your tonearm/cartridge resonance frequency with actual Test Record, buy Hi-Fi Test LP for it. It is also depends on suspension condition if the cartridge is not new.

You must know a cartridge dynamic compliance measured at 10Hz (not at 100Hz). If you see 100Hz in the manual simply convert it to 10Hz by multiplying on 1.7

More about tonearm/cartridge resonance here.

The "WOW" factor of the cartridge in your system pretty much depends on Stylus Profile and Cantilever Material. If you want extended frequency response, less record wear, long stylus life span and overall better quality you need something line MicroLine and Beryllium cantilever (not available for any new AT model), this is exactly what you can have with Audio-Technica AT-ML150 OCC for very reasonable price. For example the AT-ML170 is absolutely mind blowing cartridge and AT-ML180 is simply amazing but very expensive and impossible to find. There are many reasons why the AT-ML150 OCC is better than AT VM540ML, but one of the main reasons is Beryllium cantilever, Ceramic Base and OCC coild wire and OCC terminal pins. Actually the AT-ML150 OCC was in production and in stock in the shops until the 90’s, even after production of Beryllium was restricted by ecologists. I think the AT-ML150 OCC can be found for $350-450 depends on condition, i bought at least 3 of them over the years, then upgraded to 170 and 180.

@ roberjerman What do you make of this review of the Grado Gold? I notice he didn't review the Silver2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Wl6PUtBho

Please ignore or take with a grain of salt what Roberjerman says about the inductance of MM cartridges. True, the inductance of a typical MM is 1000 to 10,000 times that of a typical MC, but that is not the sole determinant of HF response. If it were, MM cartridges wouldn’t work at all. And MCs have their own issues with HF. His logic is flawed. The better MM cartridges more than hold their own with MCs in bandwidth and musicality. I also tend to agree with Raul that for your needs one of the new AT or Ortofon cartridges he mentioned would be a good choice.

Understood. 

Yeah I like what I've read about both the AT and Orotfons in that price range.  I also saw an excellent review of the Nagaoko MP-150 which I think would also meet my needs although I saw something else that said it's worth it to just get the MP-200 which is out of my range at the moment.

Nagaoka are excellent, too.

Dear @elangley01 : Agree with @lewm . Nagaoka is very good option too.

R.

@elangley01:   https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis9i48a-ortofon-2m-black-mc-cartridge-cartridges

R.

Some people never learn, spending years and years on this forum and discovering some truly amazing cartridges (mostly vintage MM/MI or MC) they always advice inferior Nagaoka, Grado or Hanna. Why? I just don't understand it. Instead of some killer cartridges, someone buying inferior mass market product designed in the digital era. Look at those cartridges under macro lens, is there anything interesting ? No, what i can see is glued diamonds in boron rod, or bonded elliptical styli on aluminum cantilevers. This is inferior technology, it's been said many times, explained in details million times on this forum by many members. Even $100 FR-5EX outperform most of them. But we always see some recommended low budget Nagaoka or those Ortofon 2M even after people reporting about bad quality on the same forum (pins fell off on that new Ortofon and it's a poor quality control, so bad). 

Reviewers often knows nothing about cartridges, i always see so many mistakes in reviews, some people can't even write the name of the cartridge designed correctly. I wonder how a qualified reviewer can say something about new cartridges if he never tried any good old cartridges. For reviewer it will be stupid to compare old gold vs new, who cares? The old gold in not in the stores anymore, reviewers only promote new (i hope for a honest opinion about new stuff at least, but i want to know the background of the reviewer otherwise why should i trust him?).