Where to go from Grado Gold?

With your budget you could try vintage MM cartridges that you can find NOS (unused). Grace is one of them, especially when new styli available from SoundSmith as an option (if you can’t find an original stylus or when you need replacement).

Another option is new Garrott Brothers P77i cartridge with advanced stylus profile. AU$ 690 = $500 USD



* p.s. you will find images in my virtual system

That's a pretty light tonearm, and would be a perfect match for an Audio Technica VM750SH cart...dual MM with Shibata stylus. I have one on my Akito tonearm (roughly same mass as yours) and it's killer.

Nagaoka MP200, MP300, or with some luck and a stretch, the MP500 is incredible.  Wonderfully musical, dynamic carts with amazing midrange presence, separation, and soundstage.  

The Grace F9 w noted Sounsmith stylus as needed, or a Soundsmith or a Grado - move up the line ;-)

-Nagaoka is a low compliance MP cartridge, its compliance is too low for MM, better for higher mass tonearms.  

-Audio-Technica are mid compliance MM cartridges just like Garrott, will work nicely on almost any modern tonearms.

-Original Grace is a high compliance MM cartridge (SoundSmith stylus has slightly lower compliance than original Grace).

P.S. I got 3 Grado cartridges, including signature Grado XTZ (it was $750 in the '80s). Inexpensive vintage Stanton 881s and Pickering XTZ/4000 with genuine Stereohedron styli are better than Grado in my opinion.    

My Grace can’t touch a new AT.
VM 740 ML is a best buy.
Grace dull on"air", channel balance 1.1
AT balance 0.1

What stylus tip do you have on your Grace ?
If it’s not an advanced profile then MicroLine from AT is better, but Grace made cartridges with Shibata type and Line Contact type styli too. Also SoundSmith new styli (maybe you should try) have Contact Line (CL) and Optimized Contact Line (OCL) styli - those are great, you can upgrade your elliptical Grace with any of them.

@simma

Since you like your Grado, why not stay with Grado and go up the range.

Garrott and Grace are brands that I haven’t seen here in Sweden.

Audio Technica VM750SH and VM740ML are two of the cartridges that has cought my intrest but a friend of mine says that AT has always been sounding bright and thin. But he hadn’t heard the newer series.
Does all AT have the same type of sound, from the cheapest to the expensive?

Nagoka; they gets mixed feelings about quality it seems. What is this "Nagoka sound"?

Mayby I should just try to change the original Grado Gold stylus with 8MZ or XTZ? But what will the difference be?

I have the Audio Technica VM540ML, to me anything but bright and thin.
Sounds pretty amazing to me. I like it better than my Hana SH.

Garrott and Grace are brands that I haven’t seen here in Sweden.

Why do you want to see them in Sweden if you can order online?
I’m not far from Sweden and I don’t care what I can see locally, I order everything online.

Garrott is Australian made
Grace is vintage Japanese cartridge, SoundSmith with his new styli for Grace is from NYC, USA
If you need help with NOS cartridges with no import tax in Sweden ask me, I'm in St.Petersburg. 

Mayby I should just try to change the original Grado Gold stylus with 8MZ or XTZ? But what will the difference be?

With genuine XTZ stylus you will get the maximum possible from your Gold, stylus is the most important. XTZ is the best stylus for your cartridge.

I've got another sugestion; Goldring 1042. Anyone here who have this cartridge? How does it sound compared to Grado Gold?

The problem with better audiogear is the better they get, the worse most of the records sounds. And a few records sounds better and better.The question is, where to stop upgrading if you want to enjoy the music?

@chakster 
Just realized that XTZ is very expensive. Not worth upgrading my Grado Gold with a XTZ which costs aprox $475. 
But what about 8MZ. Will 8MZ make a noticeable difference?

Hi Simna, this one is easy. The best $600 cartridge is the Goldring 1042.
It has one of the best styluses made, the Gyger S seen on cartridges like the $16,000.00 Clearaudio Goldfinger It is noticeably quieter than other styluses. I also think it has the kind of sound you want.
The AT VM760 is a good cartridge but I would go with the SLC not the SH. Soundsmith's inexpensive cartridges are OK but they are not as sophisticated. Same is true for Grado. Both lines do not hit their stride until you get to the $2000 mark. Stick with the Goldring. It will embarrass a lot of moving coil cartridges. 

@chakster
Just realized that XTZ is very expensive. Not worth upgrading my Grado Gold with a XTZ which costs aprox $475.
But what about 8MZ. Will 8MZ make a noticeable difference?

Styli for every MM or MI cartridges with advanced profiles are expensive, Grado XTZ stylus was the best stylus profile (twin tip) selected by Joseph Grado himself, XTZ was his signature model. All you need for Grace is a new stylus. Any of those 3 are better than your gold.

The goal of inexpensive Grace F9 is that you can just buy cartridge body for about $200 and then you can use any SoundSmith styli for Grace F9 (he’s offering them with different profiles and even with different cantilevers).

There are so many amazing MM cartridges, if you want F.Gyger tip then you can look for Garrott Optim w/F.Gyger (don't be shocked by price in AU$) 

Note that the F.Gyger, Replicant-100, MicroRidge, MicroLine ... are just different names for nearly the same advanced profile. F.Gyger is more popular in Europe (Goldring is a British brand). In Japan the MicroRidge, SAS, MicroLine are more popular.

I just found a Goldring 1020 in a box amongst other old hifi stuff. So I just have to buy the D42 stylus and than I will have a Goldring 1042 much cheaper than buying a new cartridge:)

Thanks for the input!

I forgot I have one of these somewhere. I need to dig it out for a spare.