Should I try a MC cartridge and phono pre?

I agree with Plato, Elizabeth, MWilson and the people at MMF (who are to be commended for offering such honest advice). Putting a high end cartridge on a low end TT and arm is probably a misallocation of your resources. We're not saying you won't hear an improvement, you certainly will, but you won't hear anywhere near what the cartridge is capable of. IOW, you'll have paid for performance you cannot hear.

I upgraded my entire front end last year. By chance, my new cartridge showed up before my new TT and arm. Being as impatient as anyone, I naturally tried it in my old, low/mid-fi rig. It made a nice improvement, but when the new TT and arm arrived I entered a whole new universe.

Another point, if you choose a cartridge first you may restrict your choice of tonearms, phono stages and even turntables. The higher up the chain you go the more critical component-matching becomes. If you have no first hand experience with higher end vinyl playback, choosing the cartridge first might restrict your choice of related components in ways you don't understand until it's too late.

The upgrade path recommended by the most experienced vinyl guru's I know is: TT >> arm >> cart >> phono stage. My limited experience confirms that this is probably best. I recommend you review your budget with the goal of upgrading TT and arm first, with the cartridge to follow. If you decide to go this way and need TT/arm advice, search the threads or start a new one for ideas in your budget range.

Good luck whatever you decide!

Eldartford,

No offense, but during your MC days did you actually hear a more SOTA rig in your system? If not, how can you possibly know whether those limited rigs hindered your MC's performance? You never gave the cartridge a chance.

MCs are more responsive to low level input than MMs. That's what makes them better, but of course that also makes them more revealing of problems. The fact that MCs respond optimally at higher VTFs does *nothing* to isolate them from a mismatched arm or a poor table. The sloppy arm bearings and motor rumble of my old TT were *vastly* more audible with my Shelter 901 than with my ADC XLM MkII, despite VTF being 1/2g higher with the Shelter. As a matter of fact, higher VTF's will actually emphasize some problems. For example, if a TT is susceptible to stylus drag effects then higher VTFs will make things worse.

Maintaining well-matched components while upgrading is more likely to satisfy and less likely to cause problems than having one component that is head-and-shoulders above other, closely linked components.

Iseekheils,

I agree with Rwwwear that a high output MC is kind of pointless. They give away the biggest advantage of MCs, low moving mass, which improves responsiveness, tracing accuracy and detail retrieval.

If you *do* decide to try a low output MC, many of us prefer to use a stepup transformer into a MM phono stage rather than a high gain MC phono stage. Some of the very best systems used by members here are set up this way, and mine is too! :)

The K&K stepup is available on VA for $200ish, and is quite well regarded. There are others too of course, mostly more expensive. You could try this without investing in an expensive MC phono stage, and sell it pretty easily if you decided to take another path. Does that help?

BTW, glad to see you're upgrading the PL400. Make sure you change all the caps. Like so many others, mine shorted out many years ago and took the speakers with them. I've still got the thing in the basement if you want it for spares. Also the 4000 pre.

Sonny,

Sorry for the lingo, VA is Vinyl Asylum. Go to www.audioasylum.com. A link to K&K Audio is in the upper right hand corner. The FAQ's are VERY useful, or you can click on Vinyl for the discussion forum.

The K&K stepups can be set up to work with the the 103R just fine. That cartridge is pretty low output so you'll probably need more gain than some other cartridges would. Ask Kevin at K&K, he'll walk you through the whole thing. He may (should) ask for the gain of your phono and line stages, as I did earlier. He'll need to know this to choose the best turns ratio for the transformers. (The higher the turns ratio, the more gain you get from the transformer.)

Ask him about loading for the 103R when running through a stepup transformer also.

I'd certainly be willing to clear out 2-3 cubic feet in the basement by finding a good home for the PL stuff. I've even got the walnut cabinets. Have your friend email me if interested.