Help with cartridge selection

You really have to know what you are doing. A lot depends on your arm and your preamp stage. Some cartridges are too light and don't balance well in some arms, and more importantly some are too heavy. The counterweight should be as close to the pivot as possible. Some cartridges need the arm to be raised, some arms cannot be raised enough to accomodate the tall profile, whereas some are very short. Shimming is not a good thing - resonances almost always happen. Preamps that advertise they can accomodate low output cartridges may also contribute noise and other junk that you don't want. I found that a higher output cartridge of lesser quality sounds better than a "better" cartridge with a lower output which makes the preamp work harder.