Is the MoFI UltraDeck wit the MasterTracker cart the best TT solution @ $2,499?
or what are the other TTs that give it a run for that kind of money?
Rega Planar 6 with an Anya MC?
I haven't heard the Ultradeck, but a lot of reviewers speak highly of it. (Even though there was a thread on Steve Hoffman about an effective mass of the tonearm listed at 35G, and how this would essentially limit the choice of compatible cartridges in the future... a little over my head). Waiting to make a leap of quality from my heavily modded RP1 with too many miles...
This is the price for a used coreless direct drive Technics 1200G released not so long ago, the GR version is even cheaper.
You can even spend your $2500 much better if you don't mind to buy some vintage tip top stuff like Denon DP-80, Technics SP-10mkII, Luxman PD-444 with tonearm of your choice and some decent vintage MM cartridge for example. Personally i am much more happy with vintage DD turntables, some of them are here. Luxman PD-444 is definitely my favorite of them all, i like it so much that i even bought two.
I have it, and can't say if it the best at that price, but it make me smile every time I place a record on the platter and make music with it. Zero regrets. Zero.
actually for that money get a refurbished SOTA Sapphire, decent Jelco arm and an Ortofon Black and whale on the Ultradeck....just my buck fifty.....but yes, I have heard the Ultradeck many many hours with a Bronze, and yes it is good....
Best at $2500? That depends on your needs. I demoed the P6, 1200GR, and UD. I could have lived with any of them, but the UltraDeck is what lives in my system now.
If I was a cartridge swapper, the GR would have been a no-brainer. If I was willing to commit to the simplicity of Rega and stick with Rega carts as a "set it and forget it table" then I would have ended up with that one. I liked the flexibility of the UD for various carts down the road, and I preferred the sound of the UD vs GR in a demo.
There is no universe in which that tonearm has 35g effective mass - that would make it the same as known heavyweight Fidelity Research FR64S with its monstrous 20g stock headshell. I think you can safely consider that listing a misprint, and assume this arm will work with most cartridges on the high side of medium compliance (most MM, and higher compliance MC carts).
@mulveling modern arm with 35g effective mass is something very strange, but if you will look at the MoFi MM cartridges specs you will see that compliance is from 8cu to 10cu for all of them, depends on the model. So these guys made some very strange low compliance MM cartridges in 2019 ? And they are not a Japanese brand to list compliance figure at 100Hz, right ? They are American brand, so it must be 10Hz compliance then. Very strange! If their cartridges are low compliance (8cu or 10cu) then a high mass arm is what they are made for, and this is correct. I’m pretty sure their cart and arm must be perfectly matched, so if the compliance of MoFi cartridge is 8cu then the effective mass of their tonearm must be very high! If the MoFi arm is heavy then vintage low compliance MC will be much better on such asm than modern low compliance MM from MoFi. If the mass of their arm is high then this arm is not optimal for most of the MM and MC on the market today.
I can’t recall any other low compliance MM cartridge, except for the Denon DL-107 MM from the late 60’s.
Add me in with the SOTA guys, from the Sapphire model on up they are a phenomenal value - superb build quality and stunning sound quality for the money. Plus you can literally plop it anywhere and not worry about isolation or feedback issues. The new Jelcos look nice, too. You'll have to expand your 2500 budget, however (although used options can get your really close).
I started with a SOTA Star in 2007 (it was a Series III from the 1980s, these things run forever) and that’s more than 50% of the reason why I’m a vinyl-first guy for life. Buy into quality up front, and continually thank yourself forever.
@chakster I agree those compliance numbers are very strange! Something seems fishy about it all; not sure I would trust any of those numbers. There is no reason for an MM to be that low in compliance. I’m sure it’s a nice sounding deck, but definitely I’m in the SOTA camp for value-for-money. And you advocate Technics decks which look very very nice, or other Japanese DD, I’d definitely choose that before an UltraDeck too.
I emailed MoFi regarding the tonearm. Here was the response:
The UltraDeck Tonearm Effective Mass is 25.14g. We have mounted many cartridges from Ortofon, Grado, Hana, Audio Technica, Denon, and others that work great with both of our turntables. You want to avoid any cartridges that are specified as high compliance but the majority of today’s cartridges are either medium or low compliance and will work great with your turntable.
The compliance of our cartridges at 100Hz is available;
25g effective mass is more believable, but i still have a hard time believing that, just eyeballing this arm with its lean straight arm tube and affixed headshell. Are there lead rods in the thing? Lol. Or are they counting mass with the MasterTracker cartridge mounted?
Their dynamic compliance numbers are also really low, as mentioned before, and very far from the static numbers - which makes it seems likely they’re measuring dynamic at 100Hz like the Japanese, rather than 10Hz like everyone else.
Oh well, at this point I think you just have to take their general advice on cartridge matching.
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