Fun with MM cartridge

Greetings,

I haven’t listened to a MM cartridge in over 35 years. Since I bought my first MC cartridge there was no need for me to listen to MM cartridges any longer. They just extract more music from records.

I have 3 turntables in my system, all with different MC cartridges. A few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to pull out one of my MM cartridges from my toy box and give it a listen. I installed a Grado XTZ on the TT. Gave it a listen, it sounded dull and lifeless. It’s a hard cartridge to drive, has a low output. I even move it to my MC input on my phono drive to get more gain. Same outcome. I was disappointed with the sound, since it has very few hours on it. Went to my toy box and installed a Grace F9E cartridge. Put on an album and gave it a listen. It put a big smile on my face. What a nice sounding cartridge. It had a good sound stage, bass was good, had good width, depth and height. Played a few more records, it is a fun cartridge to listen too.

I still prefer my MC cartridges but the F9E will stay on my TT for right now. Every once in a while I’ll listen to it, just to have fun.

Joe Nies