How are you playing your precious MONO Vinyl?

@billstevenson 

Thank you for sharing your perspective on two carts and the genre. Like you, I listened to Jazz primarily as well. 

@lewm 

 

High mileage cars tend to lose a little compression and therefore lose the requirement for high octane fuel. I don’t know whether this applies to Elliot’s report or not. 

I drove and tracked BMWs for some years, including my favorite E46 M3 SMG. The BMW engines that require high-octane do that for a reason. Among other things they have a special valve system that requires it. Running regular octane forces the ECU to adjust timing and that's not optimal for the valves. It also doesn't have the engine cleaning that high octane has. We tried to tell my wife's friend who bought a BMW and scoffed at running high octane. Years later she faced a $2000 valve adjustment and maintenance long before anything like they would have even been necessary.

I only said “high mileage “. Was thinking >100,000 miles. Of course different engines react differently. I would not follow Elliot’s advice with a new or near new car. Plus, I’m not a BMW guy. 

For primarily listening to jazz my ears tell me that irrespective of manufacturer MC cartridges tend to be smooth, MM and MI cartridges tend toward more edgy.  The last cartridge I would choose to listen to jazz, maybe excepting a classic 1950 Ellington record, would be my Myajima.  

Bill, my experience is entire different from yours. Most MC cartridges do not accurately reproduce piano in either of my systems. My Koetsu Urushi and Ortofon M2000 being notable exceptions. The others are inferior to my best MMs and MIs in reproducing the attack of a piano note. And otherwise the latter are generally more”musical”.