What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

Lol, this thread has me immensely amused. The WBF is such a joke these days that IMO anyone contributing over there is really contributing to the great YAWN. @rauliruegas  take it as a badge of honor that you are banned there, I certainly do.

@mikelavigne  you well know that the remaining members at WBF are all buddies of Steve or worse, Ron. They all follow the same guru and believe the same old BS that the guru pushes. Horns rule, and gear that is non-resolving and as bright as the sun is looked up to, probably because these folks have lost their high frequency hearing years ago!
 

The best cartridge is simple, one that meets your listening biases and your pocketbook, that works on your tonearm in a synergistic manner…and plays well with your phono stage.

@rauliruegas  Trying to determine which cartridge sounds better than the other is really a fools errand in many cases. The ML and the AT are very good sounding cartridges, but the set up, the arm, the table, the downstream gear and numerous other variables are in play here. To state unequivocally that one is better than the other is, at least imho..and having heard both, impossible. The synergy of the match up of the cartridge to the other components is crucial…and is where I believe a lot of folks fall into the trap of making an incorrect finding. 
For example, there are folk who believe that all Lyra’s have a certain sound that they find unacceptable..these very same folk are placing the blame at the cartridge, when in fact, the blame should be placed elsewhere. Set up errors, tonearm incompatibility, phono stage incompatibility, etc., 

@mikelavigne   Mike, I would have agreed with you about WBF up until RR got involved. Then, I believe that the owner dominance became prevalent, far more so than any other forum i belonged to. It was that dominance, albeit more subtle than some I can think of, but still more prevalent, that ultimately turned me off the site. To that, the mods/gorts clearly had their favorite members, whom they let say/post just about anything, and the rest were quickly censored...not my idea of equitable. 

Here, we have far more equity with the mods and I think a wider and more open minded group. 

I have noticed also that at WBF the topics and threads have become incredibly boring and dry...nothing to go there for in any way. YMMV.

Have a nice day too.

@mijostyn  A while back I had started a thread about how to go about acquiring an expensive cartridge given the lack of ability to demo the cartridge before committing to a purchase. There seemed to be little consensus as to how this could be accomplished, and a number of issues were brought to light.

Chief among them was the fact that no dealer would be happy to have you demo a mega $$ cartridge, put use on the stylus, possibly damage the cartridge while doing the set up and then request a return. This made good sense. 

Now here's the thing, I was lucky enough to have a dealer local to me ( and of course whom I had supported in the past), let me do a demo before committing to purchase of the cartridge under consideration. This did lead me to a purchase, but it also gave me a very nice comfort level with my selection. Nonetheless, the number of dealers who will allow such a thing must be extremely limited, you will pay the dealer price and not some significant discount..and you will have had to have supported the dealer in the past. I think buying a mega $$ cartridge is a risk that is difficult to off-set. 

One thing that was suggested on my thread was for dealers to have demo cartridges on hand to mount on customers arms for a demo period, a small fee to be paid for this service and in the event of purchase, a credit towards said purchase. This is the best suggestion that I think was given...to off-set the risk, BUT it also means higher dealer margins and higher middle man margins to off-set the cost of the demo cartridge. Could be worth it...

One of the safe guards that my dealer used was to personally install the cartridge that I was 'borrowing' himself. This was of course possible since he is local to me. But it did away with the possibility of user error in the set up, Since I kept the cartridge, he did not have to uninstall it, but that was the plan if I had not. 

I am assuming that IF I had not kept the cartridge, he would have sold it as slightly 'used', but we never got to that place, Nonetheless, for dealers to have a few 'demo' cartridges on hand, install these etc., would be good idea, albeit fairly costly and time consuming...although at the prices asked for the top flite stuff??

I am a believer when it comes to expensive cartridge purchases to be only from a authorized dealer. In my case, after I had bought the cartridge from my local dealer, I noticed after about a week that the cantilever was skewed. My dealer agreed and took the cartridge back to the manufacturer’s rep for correction under warranty, which was done. BUT If i had bought a gray market cartridge, I believe I would have been in the cold when an issue like this occurs.

@atmasphere My experience at WBF was typical of a lot of forums that are run by hobbyists as literal soap boxes for their POV’s. I contributed a lot of content there initially, but was soon in their bad books, simply because I did NOT agree with their guru and his BS. My thread about the new Alsyvox speakers drew the most ire, mainly due to the fact that the resident horn lovers felt threatened. To that, the agenda of the owners is pretty clear. Personally, I think the while forum is now a total joke, so if that’s hyperbolic..so be it.