What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

It is official for me now, the luxury of HiFi at hand, is now removed, as a result of nearly all the collection of ingredients being crated for Storage.

LP's, CD's, Cables, Valves and Ancillaries, along with boxes of buried parts are rediscovered, to be promptly buried once more, are now Packed.

Next will be the Source Devices, the Vinyl equipment requires a very delicate hand and thoughtful methods for the storage. I have also put a few Tonearms out for long term loan, to assist with some of the upcoming comparisons being arranged.

The Cart's and DAC will be kept at hand, to be used in future comparisons, and I believe a few Bake-offs are to be arranged prior to the Xmas, with CDP's, CDT > DAC's and I believe a Steamer > DAC, when undertaken at one home.

These usually are carried out on a few different systems, as past experiences show, there are surprises to be found, Synergy is useful description and when believed to be present, is a wonderful encounter.

Not always does a most impressive item of equipment on one system, deliver to the same degree of impression on another, on the odd occasion may have even been the least impressive.    

How I am going to miss Trying out a new purchased music in the comfort of home and How will the Dark Nights of Winter be without a few periods set aside for replays and comparison sessions.

I will be 'Sleeping on the Sofa' in relation to HiFi and very dependent on my invites to HiFi Group activities. 

Picking up on the activities of others with their equipment experiences, will at least allow myself a little continued reading and as always there will be follow up investigation if the content captures my interest.

Dear @mijostyn  : I never had the opportunity to listen your MSL cartridge but I owned two of what I think is around best best cartridges design that Matshudira made, I'm refering to the Luxman  LMC-1 and the Supex SDX-1100R.

Both are very low output: 0.1mv for the Lux and 0.2mv for the Sup and in both obviously that with that output levels the internal impedance in the order of 1.5ohms-3ohm.

The stylus shape were hiper-ellipthical and that today not line contact- Sup with ruby cantilever and I can't remmeber the one in the Lux.

Both cartridges tracking very well and with low weigth for a LOMC cartridges: 5grs.-6grs respectively.

Very good experiences with and I regret to sold the Luxman.

R.

Darius shoves his DAVA cartridges only on fb.

You can find data specification

and FR Bruel &Kjaer

mesurements of his carts there.

You csn see that cartridge FR is very flat,

1-3 db unlinearity in 16-20 khz region.

@rauliruegas , The Luxman was a good cartridge. Since then Yoshio Matsudaira developed a new core for the armature that gives him higher output ( 0.5 mV) with one layer of wire keeping the impedance very low and the moving mass very low. He started using this in the Air Tight cartridges the Opus 1 being the grand daddy of them all. I think the Platinum Reference is Yoshio's version of the Opus One. The stylus he is using is unique in my experience. The very tip instead of coming to a point is radiused and beveled on both sides, very different from the replicant 100 or Gyger S styluses. It is much more forgiving in set up. The azimuth could be off a few degrees and tracking ability would be unchanged. Cross talk would still worsen but most people would not notice that. The cartridge is really very small and beautifully made. All the angles are dead on. All you need is a good protractor and a Wally Referance and you can get it perfect in just a few minutes, no microscope required. Sonically nothing stands out at first. After a few records I became aware that I was getting better bass definition. The next characteristic that became obvious after a few more records was an easy going stress less demeanor. Not sibilance at all, not a sharp edge anywhere unless called for. It is very hard not to like this cartridge.