low output mc vs high output mc for Dual CS 5000

Thank you.

Makes sense. Your Technics has a medium mass arm that can handle a wide range of cartridges. This only became an issue when you got the CS 5000. In its day lightweight and high compliance were all the rage so there were zillions of cartridges to pick from. That's not true today so your choices among new cartridges will be fewer. At least the choosing will be simpler! :-)

If I knew anything about the Ortofon 5x I'd share but I'm not going to research individual cartridges unless you pay my standard rates! LOL. You'll learn more by doing it yourself anyway. Here's what you need to know:

There's a mathematical formula for calculatiing whether a particular arm/cartridge combo will be problematical. Every combo will resonate (shake uncontrollably) if excited at some particular frequency. The trick is to avoid combinations which would resonate at a frequency they're likely to encounter in real world play. A resonant frequency of 8-12 Hz is generally considered acceptable. Below 8 Hz risks interactions with footfalls and other floor/stand vibrations. Above 12 (or 15) Hz risks interactions with musical signals cut in the groove.

More ado about this is made than it's usually worth, because for the majority of medium mass arms there are few cartridges that would resonate outside this range. However, for a featherweight arm like the CS 5000 (or some very heavyweight arms) it's a useful exercise that will indentify incompatible cartridges from the get go.

Here's a link to an app that will do the math for you. Read the instructions, he includes some good tips. You'll need the following data:
Mass of the cartridge (in g)
Effective mass of the tonearm (in g)
(Add those two together, + ~1g for mounting hardware)
Compliance of the cartridge (in a figure called "cu")

For specs, Google is your friend, as are most manufacturer/dealer websites and especially the database at vinylengine.com. If you can't unearth the eff. mass of the CS 5000 arm, call it 5-6 grams. That's probably close enough for this purpose.

Good luck!

Thank you for your response. Until I got the CS 5000 tone arm mass was not much of an issue. Should I try to stick with a cart less than 5g? It seems Ortofon would be a good line. They were installed on Duals as part of the tt package. Could you look at the Ortofon 5x for me? I read a forum where someone recommended it as a mc. Meanwhile, I will check out Raul's post.

Cartridge output levels and tonearm mass are unrelated. Many LOMCs would perform poorly on a CS 5000, but so would many HOMCs. In either case the output level would have nothing to do with it.

The cartridge variables which affect tonearm interaction include compliance, mass and the ways in which a cartridge sends excess energy into a tonearm.

The CS 5000's tonearm was very low mass, which means it was designed for and should work best with very high compliance cartridges. There aren't many of those around today, and even fewer are MC's (of any output level).

I don't know the sound of the DL-160, but for this arm you may do best with an MM. That's what it was designed for. Check out Raul's 2,000 post MM vs. MC thread for recommendations.