New cartridge and/or tonearm for a Delphi Mk1

Hello Nascar, I know excatly what you are talking about as I have ORACLE DELPHI MKII w/ SME III w/ SHURE ULTRA 500 :) Superlative package, to be exact :) I call it synenergy.

Cheers,

I've had an ORACLE DELPHI MKI for 10 years now.
c/w an SME-Series III arm e/w a SHURE V15V cart.
A great package.
I hope you enjoy your table as much as I do.

graham

i recently bought a refurbished delphi mk1 with an origin live modded rega rb300 arm (with solid aluminum arm board insert), and the sound is really wonderful. incredibly natural yet incisive and rhythmic... much more organic sounding than my significantly pricier vpi rig

^ Quite rightly so. You can also try maglev cones/feet under the feet, it´s an inexpensive method to isolate the deck as isolation is always a good thing IME. I have also had 4 Delphis over the years. And yes, just take the dust cover away as it causes coloration.   

the only real issues you will have with an arm is the weight of the arm as the table is fully suspended the springs in the towers will need to be tuned to the arm weight. I’ve owned 4 Oracle Delphi’s over the years and they are a great table specially at the prices for a good mk1-2. Make sure the motor is not cogging as the thrust bearings tend to loosen a bit over the years and can be adjusted. also a better 24vdc power supply goes a long way over the wall wart. I’ve used various arms as well. had excellent results from a rega rb600 and rb 250 on the lower end of pricing with the proper oracle arm board ( that’s an aluminum arm board replacement for the smoked one) then you can move up to the SME arms or others just remember the weight of the arm is something you need to keep in mind for suspension tuning. also highly recommend the oracle suspension upgrade kit this is not the replacement kit that changes your whole tower just the inexpensive rebuild kit i think its around $200. that comes with all the internal parts for the towers a spring set and bearing oil. properly set up you will be very happy with the table. oh one more thing take the dam dust cover off they induce quite a bit of coloration into the music. also put some cones under the feet just stick them on with some blue tack.

I used to own a Mayware tonearm. It matches well with high compliance moving magnet cartridges. I used mine with a Sonus Blue.

Pulled the trigger and own the Mk 1...  Thanks for the quick responses - I'll go again to Oracle's site and look at the SME and also learn more of them here.  One thing decent about the Oracle Delphi is that parts are available to upgrade from the mfr if that was determined a need.  Right now it plays great - needs a dusting but otherwise so far so good.  The tone arm is a Mayware (uni-pivot), with an Ortofon OMP30.  That's what I know so far - will play it for a few months and see where it's at.  
Thanks again!  

Your best choice of cartridge depends on both the pickup arm and your phono preamp. The SME arms do work very well on the Oracles.

Good old SME III for classic high compliant cartridges from the Golden Era such as Audio-Technica,  Shure, Grace etc. You have a great TT, good luck.
If you are looking for a new cartridge I highly recommend this: Audio-Technica AT-ART9 is just suberb

Take a look at the Oracle website. They list SME there and so I assume recommended by Oracle. The SME 345 is a version made for Oracle by SME, but other modern SME arms should work as well.