What is it in MM that can give me goose-bumps? 🤔

Yes I understand. I had a 2M black that has shibata. It sounded like a CD and unengaged to me like you say OP "sort of 'engineered' about the sound".
A simple ML110 solved that issue and I never looked back. Now I am using a AT540ML.

Ok, thanks for all those cartridge suggestions.

Though if I left the impression of needing any more than the 6 MM/I cartridges I already own, this was not intended. Sorry.

According to Russian psychology (at least) as I now learned, goose-bumps an be caused by most anything, even a good motion? 😝
Never mind an experience of well presented analogue music.

So what we have here, is a phenomena strictly experienced by myself, if it’s suggested?

Interesting.
If that’s the case, it doesn’t explain really anything, other than having asked the wrong question, no? 🤔
Stuff happens, no harm done.

Thanks again for all the kind feedback.
Michélle 🇿🇦

@mijostyn I posted so many times about my current mode (current injection) phono stage (called 47 Labs Phono Cube) I like a lot with my MC cartridges.
I also posted how exactly I came to the best vintage MM after using modern expensive LOMC in $2-5k range. 
The only modern LOMC I have today is Miyajima Kansui, my Ikeda 9 III is a bit older, but my favorite LOMC are much older (FR-7fz, Miyabi Standard and Miyabi MCA ... ). All LOMC works perfectly with Gold Note PH-10 phono stage. 
One cartridge I use a lot these days is Fidelity-Research FR-7fz on FR-64s tonearm with B-60 vta base on my Luxman PD-444.


Current mode phono stage from 47 Labs is great!

Chakster, I was of the understanding that you were a dyed in the wool moving magnet guy. Now it seems there are moving coils that you like also. Have you heard a current mode phono stage with a very low impedance cartridge yet?

But as I mentioned 'goose-bumps' (goose-flesh in American English?) which is instantaneous, non-intellectual, having nothing to do with that deeper 'relating to the intellect' but more with some simple primordial (basic and fundamental) reaction!

This reaction can be caused by everything, often it's music itself (no matter what quality). If you can feel it only with MM cartridges as you said earlier then it's just you and not necessary anybody else on this forum. But if you're interested in MM cartridges (high quality performers) I recalled some of them. You can't go wrong with top Stanton and Pickering, those are emotionally rich cartridges with very sweet tone. 

If you like MM so much then continue with better MM or MI and you will find what you're looking for (in terms of sound). 

Maybe give the Hana moving coils a try. They seemingly provide all you describe. Outstanding mc cartridges at great prices. I step up my Hana EL (with elliptical stylus and Alnico magnets) with a jensen mc 2RR-L transformer (1:10 ratio/20db gain/430 ohm load impedance) into a Tavish Design tube phono preamp, the sound is divine. Using three tubes, Ge jan 5751, Tungsram 12ax7, and a Ge 12au7. I got an RCA 7025/12ax7 and an Amperex bugle boy 12ax7 in reserve to try as well.

Try a MI.
SoundSmith

The Grey export for around £500 might work for you. I have a few Deccas and the Grey is pretty sweet. 

@justmetoo  There's a few less expensive options here.

@chakster 
All good points, yet I'm not talking about which is *better*, if you read my post again. 
Though I get your point. I do. 

If one is, according to my experience, more into high/ultra-high resolution, total possible detail etc. and leave aside... what? 🤔
A certain 'naturalness', a perceived 'artificialness', top MCs (and digital?) will 'kiss the sky'.
No doubt, very cerebral all that. 

But as I mentioned 'goose-bumps' (goose-flesh in American English?) which is instantanious, non-intellectual, having nothing to do with that deeper 'relating to the intellect' but more with some simple primordial (basic and fundamental) reaction!

Such it has squad to do with any technical, electrical, physicist's analysis.

In a way quite uneducated, deeply enjoying e.g. some classical piece of music vs reading a musicological analysis into such a piece. 

The latter (normally?) would not result in getting a goose-bumps reaction, but simply stimulating ones intellect if it sufficiently resonates  being not perceived as 'boring'. 

To me that's the difference here, getting an instantanious (unsolicited by intellect) goose-bumps reaction is giving me more joy of listening, than some cerebral sound analysis...

So... to say it again and as memory serves me, MCs and digital hardly, if at all, produce the former but rather the latter. 

So, this made me reflect why the heck this was so?
It's sufficiently intriguing I find, bothering to ask. 

Michélle 🇿🇦 

Debate about MM vs. MC is pointless, just like those Digital vs Analog pointless threads on audiogon. 

When you asking an MC aficionado about MM cartridges it's like asking Digital aficionado about Analog (waste of time).

It's better to have an MM and MC and compare in your own system. 
I have both types of cartridges, also some exotic ones (cantilever-less design from Ikeda, Direct Couple design from Victor ... ). 

Moving Magnet or Moving Iron cartridge can be as good or better than some of the best MC, it depends on a cartridge, not on a type of cartridge. What is important in this search is to ignore mainstream, and then it will help to find something very special that people are not talking about on mainstream hi-end media. Here is an example of two MM and one MC, even the cheapest of those 3 is absolutely amazing and it's an MM design from Pioneer for their Exclusive series.   

I like LOMC cartridges from my collection, but I also enjoy an MM and MI and practically they are definitely better, replacement stylus is a huge benefit, look at this original Grace Ruby LEVEL II The sound of the best MM is addictive. 

Inexpensive SONY MM comes with exotic and very expensive cantilever.

I'm just trying to say there are so many amazing MM cartridges (and MC too) out the numbers of mainstream models offering today. 

If we don't know the classics how can we judge new products?  
The roots of high-fidelity in analog is somewhere in the 70's and it was a Moving Magnet era, high compliance carts and lightweight tonearms. With the right cart on the right tonearm you will be blown away by the quality of MM for sure (even if you like an MC like myself).   

 

@noromance 
Afraid, I'd need a Father-Christmas to get one at their price!
£ 1879.00 and then some I'm sure... 😥 

The heavy income days are over by now...

But thanks for bringing it up as some more exceptional alternative to either MM or MC. 

Though judging by my two MF/I cartridges' susceptibility to electro-magnetic interference - I can only guess, even this item will have some tricks going, apart from superior dynamics, eh? 😉 

Michélle 🇿🇦 

Once you've had Decca/London, you can't go back!

@teo_audio
"Micro-dynamics in proper scale with macro-dynamics for MC carts is generally a function of low moving mass combined with low output..."

That sounds like the ongoing ’mantra’ for MC cartridges, now doesn’t it?

Now there’s something else, than just coils and their windings at work...
MAGNETS.

The fewer the windings (to reduce moving mass) ok. BUT now to stay within reasonable output limits (~0.2mV), stronger / bigger magnets are called for, eh?
Talking strictly about MC right now.

(If an MM uses a tinier moving magnet to reduce moving mass, you add windings and, ok, get a bit more induction... ).

Back to MCs now and my thinking - dynamics - vs MM.

What do magnets have if their magnetic field is changed? Hysterresis - loops.
The more rapid the change the more Hysterresis (resistance to magnetic flux change in simplistic terms) 
EVERY magnet has a hysterresis effect, the bigger/stronger the more notable, give or take.

This, my suspicion, is causing this ’micro-drag’ that makes MC’s presentation different to MM’s.

The only reasonable explanation I can come up with.
This what I call ’mirco-drag’ is what I’m hearing, I think.
And it doesn’t end there, as it will create ’micro-phase-shifts’ and thereby also affect timing.
This as all gets minutely dragged out of the original ’timing position’.

Correct me if I’m ’hanging too far out of the bus’ with this, and then kindly give a sensible good alternative explanation, please. 😏

The funny thing is, no one seems to mention magnets, ever it seems, as if it was only induction and coil windings being of any import.
Michélle 🇿🇦

Micro-dynamics in proper scale with macro-dynamics for MC carts is generally a function of low moving mass combined with low output.

This, with the least amount of added noise, which tends to exclude active MC head amps, due to very low signal levels vs the unavoidable relative added noise via transistor, component (caps, resistor,) power supply, layout, circuit board, (stray inductance and capacitance, environmental sourced noise), etc effects.

A well matched step-up transformer will alleviate all of that to some notable degree. This, if the person attempting... is looking to lower the static and dynamic noise floor in the system... and sees things this way. Via hearing and listening, not by the numbers, per se.

The other way (while engaging in due diligence) , is via a low self noise MM cart, one with excellent mechanical, electrical, and EMI/ RFI noise control.

One of the best in these categories, is the Teo CBP and CC cartridges.  Probably the lowest complex self-noise cartridge around. Dynamics come from improving the complex noise floor, first and foremost. This is especially true with phono cartridges.

It's the only cartridge available (to my knowledge) where the basic unit has a 'no cost' trial period. 

If a person likes it, then they can upgrade the stylus any time they want, to a nude elliptical, micro-line, shibata stylus. To do so on their own, at minimal cost.

Best of all worlds, in perpetuity.... is the aim.

Dynamics... is it *just* this? 

I hear differences in timbre/tonality of practically all that's going on.

My Quintet Black and Cadenza Black sound good, but there's always something sort of 'engineered' about the sound, and even other items like PW Windfeld or its predecessor... whether using an SUT or straight into 100-200 ohm loading, this MC charcteristic remains. 

As for CD, when comparing identical recordings to LP running an MC, it sounds so very much the same, good, practically indistinguishable - but just like ultra high tech engineered. Best I can put it. 

Like a bit say the difference between a mechanical piano (perfect) and one played by a person, both perfect - yet one more filled with life, the other somehow a bit - sterile? 🤔 

All this can't be said when I'm using any of my MM cartridges, and it has more to do with timbre and TIMING... , than higher/better resolution. 
Michélle 🇿🇦 

Dynamics. Absolutely. If you are a rock fan than a fixed coil cartridge is the only way to go. MCs as a group are too polite. Some of the ultra low impedance MCs with current mode phono stages might be a match. But , way more expensive. I have not had the pleasure of hearing this set up yet. The other problem in the cartridge world is that MC cartridges are frightfully over priced. Thank you Koetsu which started this trend in the late 70s.

Stanton CS-100 WOS and Pickering XSV-5000 can do that. Both are oustanding MM, very rich and sweet sound.