In my infinite quest of attaining gear that punches above it's weight class.... I landed a used JD9 to try it out and I'm frustrated. The AT120ET cart is too high of output to use the high outputs (even with 12au7 tubes). I ended up using the low outputs. While it still sounds good, I can't help but think that I'm not getting as much out of it with the cart i'm using. ...and I don't want to upgrade my cart.
I think I might go back to the Cambridge 651p or Musical Fidelity V90-LPS. Both sounded pretty good. I post here, so you guys can talk me out of it ... or suggest an alternative. On the plus side, I did score some 12ax7 mullards, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
I have a stock technics 1200 Mk2 that I'm quite happy with. Just need a preamp that matches nicely with the cart. I think there might be something in-between the $200 - $600 that might be a good match.
Conversely both the Cambridge and MF are pretty good. I'm not looking for a critical preamp. Thoughts?
I run an Audio Teknica AT150 and that gives more detail than my KB Ortofon sty40. Also have used a Denon 103R and that was more detailed than the Ortofon, I thought in my system.
Did not really notice a whole lot of gain difference between the three cartridges. Using the MM on the JD9, I believe.
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