In audio, don't assume that price is proportional to performance. Like Grinnell said, the choice should be based on your phono stage, etc. But the phono stage is most important. Unless the Clearaudio MC is a "high output" MC (meaning it makes at least 1.0mV of signal at 5cm/sec stylus velocity), you are going to need a more expensive higher gain phono stage for MC vs MM. So, not only do MCs (high and low output) tend to cost more than MMs, you also generally pay more for phono stages that work with them because of their low output. If you are truly a beginner, and if you are on a typical beginner's budget, I say choose a MM cartridge (there are many that are wonderful) and choose a MM phono stage to go with. Don't limit yourself to Clearaudio, either. |
For one thing, the top MM/MI cartridges when well set up in a good tonearm seem to track piano music better than (my) MC cartridges, to include Koetsu Urushi, van den Hul Colibri, and Ortofon MC7500. The really good MMs capture the overtones and the decay of a piano more realistically, IMO. At least I attribute this to the superior tracking ability of the MM/MI class vs the MC class, and I believe that the hard data from tracking tests does support that. Mind you, there is plenty to like about MC cartridges as well. |
It's senseless to argue. Everyone should do what he or she likes. Just trying to help the OP. Marakanetz, I disagree with your sentiment, but more importantly you are not helping the OP by stating such a strong opinion with no backup information to support it. The rest of you guys can send me all your "boxy" sounding MM and MI cartridges; I will keep some of them. Probably I won't like some of them, either. This is to say that there are mediocre cartridges of every type. You guys have been successfully brainwashed by the audio establishment.
Lostbears, it seems you have a more substantial budget than I would have imagined. In that case, it probably IS wise to buy a very good phono stage with MC capability. Then you can decide at leisure whether or not the "MM/MI alternative" (as Raul likes to call it) should be so casually dismissed. |
Marakanetz, There you go again. IMO, Nanbil has it about right. And I think Raul would agree. And Tbromgard more or less echoed my earlier post. |
Dear Nikola, If you win the lottery, as we Yanks like to say, "Money talks". I am happy with what i have. |
Dear Nikola, In the late 70s I was still in medical training but had already been an audiophile for a few years. I owned Magneplanar Tympani spkrs with Transmission Line woofers that I built myself. Some guy brought over a Supex and a Mark Levinson JC1 step-up (designed by John Curl) needed to run the Supex on my system. I really was not impressed at all, and I remember wondering what the fuss was all about. The sonics were "different" from what I was used to, but not necessarily better. I think several more years went by before I finally succumbed to MC cartridges. At this point, I am squarely in tune with Raul's post above. Both types can have merits, but dollar for dollar (or Euro for Euro), MC cannot compete with MM/MI. On a cost-no-object basis, then it is up to the listener to decide. |
My dear audiophile friend, who is now too ill to have fun with this hobby, and I found out about HP's feet of clay early on, I think around issue #3 of TAS, when he went wild over the then new Harman Kardon solid state preamp (Citation 12, I think). He and I auditioned one and found it to be just plain awful, "shrill" is the best single word description. This was our first bit of evidence that HP favored a very clinical sound with exaggerated hf response. What HP did do that makes him memorable is to invent a language that can be used to describe the differences in sound among audio components. In that way he was/is a genius.
To his credit, he did also recognize the Audio Research products early on. His endorsement of this and other tube gear was a seminal event in shattering the notion that solid state was inherently superior to tubes just because it measures better in the then common analytical tests. (This is not to say that present day SS gear is in any way inherently Inferior to present day tube gear. Don't want to start a war. The SS gear of the early 70s was like early digital gear of the late 80s.... not so good sounding but great in the laboratory.) |
I am far from "done" in comparing MM to MC cartridges. I view this as a work in progress. I would also point out that MI cartridges and induced magnet (IM) cartridges have something to offer which may be unique with respect to both conventional MM and MC cartridges. (Sometimes I think it is the IM/MI "alternative" that draws me in the most.) Then, in the end, it's what you personally like plus what your system "does" best. Plus plus, Mike might be playing with MC cartridges that I do not dare dream about in terms of cost. Having said all that, I am at the point where I would never be without at least one of all 3-4 types. Two years ago, I was a total skeptic on anything but MC cartridges. |
Dear Mike, Me, too. I wanted to hear what idler- and direct-drive turntables could do, after spending 30 years or so in the belt-drive world, albeit not at the top of that world. My experience thus far leads me to stick with idler- and/or direct-drive vs belt-drive at a comparable price point (which is a very important qualification for me; I do not wish to suggest that there are no great belt-drive turntables, just that I do not wish to afford any of them). Unfortunately, in the process I have developed an affection for the turntables I "collected", and although, like you, I could now settle down with just one (or maybe two), I am finding it hard to let go of the ones I seldom use. Still, as I like to point out to my dear wife, I have had as many as seven here at home; now I have "only" four. She's a good sport. And I tell her they have been a good investment.
Which of the MM/MI cartridges did you audition in your own system? Just curious. |
Thanks for taking the time to respond, Mike. For what it's worth, those two just happen to be among the few that I also have auditioned. The top Acutex's and the top Stanton/Pickerings are better, FWIW, and not that I think this will send you out to look for either. Not to say that the Ortofon M20FL or M20E (whichever one you tried) and the top Azden are chopped liver. |
He means LPs, Nikola. He means LPs are more important than the gear we use to listen to them. If one is an audiophile, one must always be careful to say that lest the listener were to think one is merely a gearhead.
You guys want vintage? I will give you vintage; I just took delivery on a pair of Beveridge 2SW loudspeakers and their Beveridge direct-drive amplifiers. As a lifelong ESL-ophile, I have finally reached Mt Olympus. (That's Olympus with a "U".) But a listening test will have to await moving the darn things from their shipping crates in my garage to my basement.
I for one consider it to be a personal deficiency to admit that I have not heard either Raul's preamp or JCarr's phono stage. Has anyone else in this little discussion group heard either (besides Raul and JCarr)? |
