Cartridges: Complete Scam?

Madavid0, I suggest you attend a music matters demo or one of the big audio trade shows where gear makers, sellers and reviewers have set up high end analog systems including state of the art cartridges in front of other outstanding equipment and hear for yourself if you think it sounds “colored” or only just as good as a “$200 bundler”.

My opinion, a decent $200 cartridge well set up and matched with arm in an excellent turntable can sound very, very good, and will allow you to hear why so many people get hooked on vinyl.  But a well set up and matched say, Lyra Etna, will place you at the original performance.  If you care about good audio reproduction, its kind of like trying to describe with words what its like to stand on the edge and look over the Grand Canyon.  You just need to go listen.  

And whatever you end up with, take time to set it up properly.

For the record, for me, I categorically and respectfully disagree with your postulate.  OK?  My rebuttal is only soft in that you are free to disagree with me, but I would take it less seriously until you have done some critical listening yourself.  

Others here are posting based on their personal experience, and their level of experience with “vintage” cartridges and their implementation might be considerably greater than my own.  But I have carefully listened to a lot of high end systems starting in the early 70s, and the sum of the parts for a high end analog system sounds very different from then to now.  For me.  So of course is the price, which like everything has inflated due to monetary “inflation”, inflated expectations, inflated egos, and real advances in technologies, materials and effort.

In 1970, a “very good” but not SOTA turntable was $150, and a very good cartridge perhaps half to 3/4 of that.  In today’s dollars, that would be about $1500.  It is possible that you could buy a new setup with an mm cartidge for that amount that would sound as good as the 1970s combo, but I doubt it. In those days the vintage system would be played through the phono pre built into the amplifier and all gear connected using zip cord and skinny unsheilded RCAs.

Going the other way, a “very good” but not SOTA current analog front end with an MC cartridge and an outboard phono preamp would cost say $20,000 new.  That is about $3,300 in 1970 dollars, which would be an unheard of amount to spend on a part of your hifi at the time for anyone but a movie producer. Inflation of all kinds in effect here.

All that said, the current “very good” system would likely sound better connected to the same modern backend than the 1970s “very good” system.

The system I described in my first post as revelatory was set up by Peter McGrath of Wilson Audio and Michael Fremer of Stereophile and Analog Planet and was very high end using Lyra cartridge, SME table, ARC electronics, Transparent cables and large Wilson speakers (Alexandria?). It cost probably $350,000.  

That is $70,000 in mid seventies dollars.  My guess is that would be a reasonable investment for a midling recording studio at the time.  Home system?  You would be laughed off my island, but maybe you ran with a different crowd at the time. Nothing I heard outside of a well engineered rock concert or well designed concert hall in the 1970s could come close to what came out of the system set up by Fremer and McGrath.  Nothing else actually ever has.

So you ask “Cartridges: Complete Scam?  I say no. The upper end of MC cartridges today played in a very high end system will sound more neutral, revealing and faster than high end vintage cartridges.  In the middle range you really have to listen to different pickups in your system to decide what works and what does not, and where the value is.  For you.

Plus one for folkfreak.

madavid0, you can think of cartridge - tonearm - table - phono pre matching like speaker driver - cabinet - crossover - amp matching.  They are part of a system, and swapping pieces in and out willy nilly can be an exercise in frustration.  

You would probably never think about replacing the drivers in a pair of Magico’s with something that is speced differently and assume you could do better than the designer.  Cartridge-arm matches are unfortunately a bit like that.  Many people (myself included) have gone up a rung on the cartridge ladder only to learn their old cheaper cartridge was a better match to their tone arm and/phono pre. It doesn’t mean the more expensive cartridge is a “scam”, just not the right one for your rig.  

But when you get it right, it is pretty great.  Missing this fundamental point can lead to asking the wrong questions in persuit of improved sound.