Good moving magnet or cheap moving coil


I want to buy a new cartridge to replace the Sumiko BPS in my LP12.Although the BPS is a moving coil it never had any magic in my system.Rather thin sounding with woolly base.
Should I go with a good moving magnet (such as the clearaudio aurum beta) or another high output moving coil(which one?). Budget is about $600 tops.
rrm

Showing 3 responses by marakanetz

for $600 you can get dynavector 20xH high output moving coil and there you shall see the differences i bet ya.

in this price point this cartridge is unbeatable.
I used Sumiko BPS and found this cartridge not realy sencitive to VTA unless you go for extreams and I can assume that the author of this discussion is using mm settings for this cartridge which is entirely right.

This cartridge has everything from analytical point of view except music. It would never sound live no-matter what effort will you apply. It's an entry-level for christ sake.

Linn LP12 deserves a better more musical cartridge and $600 is the right budget for even descent mc cartridge.
Maxgain, I used this cartridge for just enough hours to break it in and than sold due to the desire of more live music from my vinyls.

Maybe I did not provide enough experimentation with it in terms of VTA but the only differences I heard is at extreams of my Michell VTA for Rega arm.

I played with an antiskate which gave me more 3D and tightness applying just minimal for the best results.

I have to admit that mounting and tuning-up with higher-end cartridges is even more complicated since they "feel" any missalignement in setup much more.

I spend pretty large amount of time properly setting up Lyra Helikon cartridge.