Grade Master3 cartridge--Moving Iron Design

Peter Ledermann has admitted he only makes low output MI cartridges so that buyers can use their expensive MC phono stages with them.

That’s a really interesting point, in favor of high-output MI (and MM). Since there’s NO moving mass penalty with regards to increased coil turns, the only potential cost to SQ would be in the signal going though more wire, and higher inductance. The advantages would lie in vastly simpler & easier phono amplification (less gain stages), and making the electronic noise floor drop away from consideration. In net, it seems almost silly to get a low-output MI cartridge? What would be the practical benefit to low output MI? It seemingly doesn’t make sense to buy a $multi-K LO-MI just because you wanted to reuse a LO-MC phono stage (extra gain stages) that (for some reason) didn’t have a switchable "just MM" mode. 

This interview details the issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHYUOV3_Fog

You never hear anything about it, but there is a special-order medium output (1.1mV) version of the Hyperion called the Helios.

@dogberry:

I believe the new owners of the London (Decca) brand will put a line contact stylus on the Maroon model (which comes with a spherical/conical) for an additional $268. I say that because I sent them my Model 4RC to be rebuilt, and they offered me that option.

While Grado and other moving iron designs share the moving iron element with Londons and Deccas, they sound nothing like the latter. J. Gordon Holt characterized the lack of a cantilever in the Deccas as resulting in a lack of "cantilever haze." If you've heard a direct-to-disk LP you have an idea of the startling immediacy and dynamic characteristics of the Decca/London design.

Peter L started out, I think, repairing B&O cartridges, which are all MI types, and the best of them can compete with any modern cartridge, IMO. That, I am guessing is how he got into the MI business. Even now he makes the SMMC line which is a reprise of the old B&O cartridges.  Unfortunately, it does not appear that he can get the hollow sapphire tubular cantilevers of the old B&O MMC and MMC20CL series. That cantilever may be a key to the fantastic sonics of yore. I love MI cartridges and have yet to hear a bad one. All of mine are high output types.

I forgot to mention that the output voltage of Londons and Deccas is a very high 5mV! Schitt includes a 33dB gain setting specifically for Londons/Deccas on their Mani phono stage, 40dB on the Skoll and Stjama.

Some London/Decca enthusiasts like to run their pickups into a lower than standard 47k Ohm impedance. George Counnas of Zesto Audio told me he put a switchable setting of 15k Ohm in his Andros II phono stage at the behest of his industry friends who use Londons/Deccas in their personal systems.