What are the most balanced relatively neutral cartridges at each price level ?


Say,

level 1 - up to$1k.

level 2 - up to $3.

level 3 - up to $5k.

level 4. - any price.

Personally, I wouldn't want much colour at the source level.

inna

Showing 1 response by drmuso

I don’t think this is such a vague question, but I think it may be difficult to answer, since we all hear cartridges through our systems that have certain deviations from neutrality.

At level 3, I think my Lyra Kleos is pretty neutral, but when I compare it to a CD or digital high-res version of the same album, the digital tends to have more high-frequency content (and not always in a good, more musical way), so I don’t know if that means the Kleos or my phono cables are rolled off on top or if this is an artifact of my digital system.  (I have a Denafrips Venus 15 R2R DAC, and these are said to be pretty close to analog sound, and I think it is.) There may be some limitations from my tonearm, too, the Eminent Technology ET-2, which reviewers thought had less deep bass than the SME V, which was often considered a reference tonearm back in the day.