Showdown: Your Favorite Cart for Classical?


And I mean all kinds of classical. From the dense, big-scale orchestral (Mahler, R. Strauss, Bruckner), to chamber & instrumental, a cappella pre-Renaissance polyphony.

Miyabi 47?
Dynavector XV1?
Allaerts?
Zyx?
Or what?

Please fight civilly.
caspermao
Of the cartridges I have experienced, the Dynavector XV-1s is my current favorite. It does a great job with all sorts of acoustic music, both large scale and small scale.
Haven't heard them all but I've been using a Myabi Standard for years and still love it.
Tracking ability and relaxed, transparent presentation without noise are things that are important for a cartridge used for classical music, although really those requirements are important for lots of other music too so I am of the opinion that what is good for classical is good for everything.

Two standouts for me are the ZYX Universe and the Transfiguration Orpheus. Of course, to winnow the best out of any cartridge the tone arm is paramount, and the weight of the cartridge and the resulting effective mass of the arm interact: you need a mechnical resonance between 7 and 12 Hz for best result. The Triplanar works exceptionally well with these two cartridges.