Dear Dave: Other than with other people posted an important difference is IMHO an unjustified very high price of the MC cartridges against the " low " one in MM cartridges.
Along with all those subjects is the kind of tonearm that usually needs MC and MM cartridges: low to medium mass the MM and medium to high mass the MC cartridges.
Other critical subject is that normally ( 90-95% ) the MC phono stages out there use step-up transformers to achieve the gain for the MC cartridges, this step-up transformers always make a heavy degradation to the cartridge signal: stay away from it.
The MM cartridges does not need any step up transformer, this is an advantage.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.
Along with all those subjects is the kind of tonearm that usually needs MC and MM cartridges: low to medium mass the MM and medium to high mass the MC cartridges.
Other critical subject is that normally ( 90-95% ) the MC phono stages out there use step-up transformers to achieve the gain for the MC cartridges, this step-up transformers always make a heavy degradation to the cartridge signal: stay away from it.
The MM cartridges does not need any step up transformer, this is an advantage.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.