Need New MM Cartridge Recommendation

@jbhiller long time favorite ortofon in MM thread is vintage ORTOFON M20-FL.You will be surprised how good it is. Best buy for the money (if you can find nos). I've bough one and it's a keeper. Outperformed Glanz 31L and many others.  

Why not look for top quality vintage MM cartridges like Victor X1 or X1II or X1IIE ? It's hard to believe it can be beaten by some morern mm design at any price. 

If you like Fidelity Research MC you should try FR-5E MM design from the master Ikeda San. This model also recommended by Jonathan Carr (designer of Lyra cartridges) in MM THREAD (i know it’s hard to read all 241 pages full of information about the world best MM cartridges). Worth to try.

I wonder why no one mentioned Australian Garrott Brothers MM cartridges - they are amazing. Not only legendary classic p-77 with Micro Tracer Diamond  (which i like a lot) and new p-77i with MicroScanner II stylus profile, but also their latest Optim and Optim Ruby with the most advanced Fritz Gyger stylus profile.

@rauliruegas

The other recomendation on Victor is a waist of time because SAS stylus replacement are no longer in production from 3 month

Do you like SAS or prefer the original stylus of Victor X1II or XIIE ? I think the best is to find NOS Victor. It was you who said earlier that SAS made with specific price tag in mind when Victor is more complicated design made to be the best in competition between companies in the golden age of analog and MM design. It was not a big problem for me to find NOS original Victor X1II (with original stylus) and later another lightly used X1IIE.

I don’t care about SAS since it was on my Technics 205c mk4. The original technics mk4 stylus was much better.

There are plenty of new design with similar Micro Ridge stylus profile available today but who cares? Pretty much detailed sound but somehow boring compared to some vintage eliptical, shibata or line contact models.

In most cases SAS replacement looks ugly on nice vintage cartridges that never been designed to wear sas on them.

p.s. Now i remember your post about Ortofom M20FL when you clearly explained that M20E (eliptical) is your choice over M20FL (fine line). So why the most advanced profile is not always mean the best? So why bother with SAS aka Micro Ridge? 

@fleib

The SAS was a great replacement for many carts. Where else can you get a boron/MR for peanuts? It’s the cantilever, not the tip which excites the generator. What kind of cantilever does the Technics have? Good luck finding original Technics stylus.

Technics EPC-205CMk4 comes with super light weight tapered Boron pipe. The metal has been crystallized and then processed into a cantilever with a laser beam. This design results in a dramatic reduction in effective tip mass which is 0,109 mg. Stylus is 0,2 x 0,7 elliptical (0,07-mm square-block diamond tip). Neodymium magnet. Frequency response: 5 Hz to 100 khz

For some reason the original technics stylus was much better to my ears than new jico sas.

Another technics epc-100c mk3 was retipped and recantilevered by Axel (with magaoka boron cantilever and elliptical diamond). Also great cartridge. 

@fleib

It’s no coincidence that Griffithds, Halcro, Nandric and myself, to name some, all think the Victor Z1/SAS is an excellent cart. It has a short cantilever so HF resonance is suitably high and transient response is excellent. It may not be your favorite, but I’m glad I bought one.

I have NOS Victor X1-II in the line waiting for my audition, really looking forward to check it out 

@fleib 

Chakster,

It will be interesting to see what you come up with regarding the X1-II.

Griffithds loaned me a MK I, but the stylus was loose and I'm not sure if I secured it enough. I had better results with the Z1/SAS.

Regards,

I need to force myself to remove Stanton 980 LZS that i currently use with ZYX CPP-1 (cryo Pre-Pre Amp) on Reed 3p. Never expected that Stanton can be so good, love the sound.