suggestions on MM to MC upgrade

Dear all,

Thanks for your gracious comments. Much appreciated.

Dear Rauliruegas,

I am actually very new to analog - too young to grow up with them, didn't believe how good the vinyl sound can be, until hearing a LP-12 with ATOC9 at my friend's place. His system is my only reference now, because there is no shop in town carry analog demo :( On the other hand, ignorance of how it can sound even much better is probably a bless too :)

Music taste is 99%+ classical - instrumental, vocal, orchestra, opera. Compared to my friend's sytem (AC OC9 + Linto), I think mine doesn't have that much of "airy" quality, but sound more "organic" - which I really like. Also, his OC9 seems to deliever more details. However, both may be partially becuase of the table setup - I am still very new to LP-12 and I know my suspension setup is far from perfect.

In short, the sound I am looking for is having more details while maintaining the organic feel as my Clearaudio Virtuoso delivers. Since I got a good Linto deal a while ago, MC route becomes an option. Arm upgrade to Ekos is over budget - plus I don't want Linto sitting idle there.

Dear Gxleetw see your point. I only posted that because it is not easy to achieve a " wonderful " sound ( of course that there are different quality levels of " wonderful ". ) and this could means that some way or the other you have Synergy on your system and this is a critical and very important characteristics that everyone is looking for.
Sometimes adding a " better " audio item could broke that Synergy so be very careful on your system changes.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Raul,

Bought the Nagaoka MP-50 based upon your write up of MM cartridges (01-15-08) and am most pleased. So much so that I am selling my Sumiko Celebration Pearwood and my Shelter 501 Mono, the Nagaoka is more musical and less harsh. It also costs 1/4 the amount of either. The only argument I propose is that mine, for whatever reason, sounds better at 250ohms rather than 100kohms as suggested. Even at 47K ohms (the most my Loricraft Missing Link is able to dial in to) the sound is muffled, highlights lost. Perhaps as the cartridge breaks in this will change, will wait and see.

Gxleetw,
Like you, I listen almost exclusively to classical music. And while these observations may apply to nobody but me, I'll share them for what they're worth.

The moving-coil carts I have (Shelter 501 MkII and Benz Ace S (low output) are breathtaking in their transparency. It's like looking through a freshly cleaned window. Very appealing. I use both of them regularly. But on many discs (especially those with with heavy violin passages), I find the upper frequencies to be a bit less realistic than with my Grado Statement Sonata1 (0.5mv output).

I won't call the high-pitched violins shrill, harsh or strident, but there is a thin, insubstantial, "pinched" quality to them that I don't hear in the concert hall. My moving-iron Grado does a better job of capturing the woody, rosiny, rich character of the violins.

I probably wouldn't want to be without a good moving coil, but if I had to choose one type, it would be the Grado or something very much like it. As I said, for what it's worth.
-Bob

Dear Danielvrandeburg: Good that you like it, very fine quality performance.

You need to loadd as best in your own system and remember that different capacitance values makes a difference too so you have " play " with capacitance too.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.