High Performance Moving Iron Cartridge Candidates?

I am surprised if PL recommends setting AS using a blank area on an LP, but I do not doubt the veracity of Elliot’s description of the video.  On the other hand, I am not going to watch it.  Since the skating force arises from the friction of the stylus in the groove plus lack of tangency to the groove acting in concert, it has always seemed to me that the most accurate way to set AS is to have the stylus running on a grooved part of an LP.  The contact patches of a stylus are not engaged when the stylus is riding on a blank surface, or at least they are not engaged in the same way as they are during play. Therefore, friction is likely to be different on a blank surface vs on a grooved surface. But I guess that since the skating force is ever changing during play due both to tracking angle error changing and to changes in groove tortuosity, the whole thing is a crapshoot at best, so it doesn’t matter how you set AS; the AS will usually not be quite correct for countering the skating force.

I’m actually using chewing gum on the headshell of my Reed 2A, in order to counterbalance my Dynavector 17D3. 

It’s always easy to add mass to any tonearm. Low effective mass is never an insurmountable problem. Also, to be clear, it’s high output MC cartridges that I haven’t liked, not high output MIs. The latter are most of my favorites of all time: B&O MMC1, Nagaoka MP500, Acutex LPM320.

And finally, the ART9Xi is an upgrade of the ART9.

I think PL was influenced to get into MI cartridge development and manufacture by his prior experience with top of the line B&O cartridges, like the MMC1 and the MMC20CL.  So he first developed the SMMC line of SoundSmith cartridges, which he still sells.  The SMMC cartridges are virtually copies of the B&O MMC series. And SS specialized in the repair of B&O cartridges early on. In my opinion, the MMC1 is one of the finest sounding cartridges ever made, so I very much understand why PL chose that path.  As to whether the SMMC cartridges are structurally related to the Voice and its successors, which get ever more costly as you move up the line, is something only PL can say.  But you could do worse than to go in that direction. As to longevity, none of us will be around forever, so buy what you like and forgeddaboudit.  If the cartridges you leave behind are a significant fraction of your estate, you ought not to be dabbling in this area.

Also only in my opinion, HOMC cartridges are the least good sounding of all types of cartridges that I have heard, and I have owned some purportedly very good ones. I’d much sooner own a Grace Ruby, even with the OEM elliptical cantilever, although the SS OCL stylus does take it up a few notches.

Jason, read what you wrote. Don’t you think your generalization is at best flimsy?

Nagaoka, B&O, Grado. High output MI will generally work with MM stage and require 47K ohms input.