Mono cartridge recommendation

I could be wrong, but I think SOS is an original stereo pressing. Hence the advisory note that you quote. It’s divine regardless.

I know.

A bridged stereo cartridge becomes a “horizontal generator”. Signal produced by vertical deflection of the cantilever is canceled.

andysf,  Sorry about that.  I guess I was thinking of a chart on their website, not necessarily a written essay on the subject. The Japanese are notoriously poor with English.  Even English teaching in Japan is poor.  From what I can gather, the two languages are very different in construction.  Many of us can recall the laughable owners manuals that came with Sony and products of other major well-heeled Japanese corporations, as recently as 10-15 years ago.  They do much better these days.  Miyajima is tiny and probably not able to muster good translators.  My own son is a scholar in Japanese and can speak it better than many natives, yet he hates to translate for my benefit.  From the look on his face, it seems to give him a headache.

There are lots of opinions on stylus profiles in relation to playing mono LPs.  One side of that issue is addressed pretty well on the Miyajima website, but it is a bit one-sided. I personally have no opinion because no experience; I am still using the mono switch for mono LPs.  So I can only say that makes a major difference for the better, compared to playing mono LPs in stereo.  I do own a Shelter 501 mk2 mono cartridge, but it sits in its sealed packaging; I just never have bothered to set it up. I would tend to doubt or at least wonder whether a mono cartridge, especially one that is derived from a stereo base, would be quieter than using a mono switch, but both are for sure likely to be quieter than playing mono in stereo. 


The brain is a wondrous organ; I swear that I hear some of the better mono LPs in a kind of stereo, in that I can place the instruments and vocalists in front of me.  Whereas in some other (mono) cases, every musician is sitting on every other musician's lap.

Be aware also that if you use different cartridges for mono vs stereo, then you are introducing another variable to the question of whether a mono switch is superior or inferior to using a mono cartridge.  Could be you like the mono cartridge per se better than your stereo cartridge, or vice-versa. Technically, most modern mono cartridges are stereo cartridges that have been bridged internally for mono operation, which is pretty much what the mono switch does to the signal from a stereo cartridge playing a mono LP.  Any differences in sonics could be due to the fact that in a cartridge, the bridging is done before amplification and application of RIAA correction.  In a preamplifier, the mono switch operates on a fully amplified and corrected signal, before feeding the amplifier.  This has been discussed a zillion times on this forum.