Cartridges

I would say great pressings are always best, but I personally wont pay the 4 digits some command. Meanwhile good cart but maybe not ’ultra premium’. What this means varies among people. Strictly based on cost I would think ultra premium is over $9k. Is that what you had in mind?

Axia to Epoch 3 is indeed a big jump, price wise. You would have to determine if your table/arm/phono could also support the improvements.

Even looking at $6k carts opens doors to a large uptick in performance imho

A few recommendations:

From the lines I carry:

Aidas Gala Gold ( 24kt windings ) $6200 as Fremer said does nothing wrong ...

Tedeska DST201us Torres ( silver windings ) $6200 

Or from lines I dont deal with:

Dynavector XV-1S

Phasemation PP 2000

For *me*, based on your post, I would definitely drop the cart high bar to where I mentioned and focus on building record collection up. My 2c