Marantz TT15/ Clearaudio Satisfy for MC carts?

I'm trying to keep this system as sane as possible. I have around 7k in to it so far...the Ton Trager stands didn't come cheap. I'd like it to be a well balanced system that will be less than 10K after the turntable. At the end of the day, I'm sure there are used options that were $5K new, and are available for $3K. That would be ok, but I'm not quite sure what table to target. tablejockey- I really enjoyed the Amadeus, but no longer own one. I had two here at one point. If I can reach the WT performance with a more user friendly (less finicky) table, that would be perfect. But I'm not sure I would want to go back to the WT. I'd likely go JA Mitchell, a Kuzma Pipe Bomb, or a GEM Dandy. BTW- I moved from the WT to a  Kuzma Stabi Ref 2/ Ref 313 arm.  I picked that up 3-4 years ago. It's likely my LAST table, but that's for my Tube/Horn setup. 

I can't speak to running a MC on the TT15, but I did own the TT15 for a few years and it was a fantastic table with overall performance that I think is above it's price tag.  The supplied Virtuoso cart is very good, albeit a little noisy in the groove.  I did a mod at one point and removed the stock elliptical stylus and replaced it with an AT VM95ML microline stylus.  (From what I understand, the CA Virtuoso is made by Audio Technica.)  It's easy to do, lots of videos and instructions out there on the web.  The ML stylus gave me better tracking and a nice reduction in surface noise.  I never really had a burning desire to replace the Virtuoso with a moving coil.

The key as others have pointed out is choosing a cart with the proper compliance that mates well with the Satisfy tone arm.  I use the cartridge resonance evaluator tool over at vinylengine.com.  At 8g effective mass, the Satisfy is a low mass tonearm, so you'll want to look at carts with higher compliance.  I've read of several people having a lot of success with the AT ART9 cartridges on the TT15.

bjp9738- This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks so much. I will check out my EMT TSD 75...I believe it’s high compliance, so it should mate well with the Satisfy. I believe what you mentioned about the Virtuoso being a bit noisy in the groove makes sense. It wasn’t obvious, but now that you mentioned it... I had also heard that the AT stylus can be installed on the Virtuoso. That would be a perfect scenario for this system, because I want to keep it sane and casual...meaning don’t pour much money in to it in the future...and don’t sweat things such as an LP not being perfectly flat. This is something I obsess over when playing the table in my main system. But the cartridge on that table was over $4K. So when (for example), I'm dealing with big dollar cartridges, I can’t help myself from being obsessive. So it’s not only that I’d like to have the future option to go MC, but I already have the Charisma (Denon) 103, and the EMT mentioned above. So I’d love to be able to play one of those, but I’m afraid the Denon may not be a good match. So I will have to brush up on my knowledge going forward. BTW- the Naim phono is indeed MM only, but I have a step up for my high impedance cartridges, so I’m covered there for both MC’s. Cheers -Don

I’m going to make a very radical suggestion for an audiophile. You heard the Virtuoso cartridge at the dealer and described it as “very impressive”. How about buying what you know you liked rather than buying a pig in a poke? Does this make any sense? The stock cart is a great starting place and you had the benefit of audition. You will have to replace it in a couple of years anyway and then you can screw around more. IMO

Absolutely agree...I had no issues at all with the Virtuoso. I have very little experience with MM carts, but this one was quite positive. It's more about choosing the right table and arm. And it's my bad for not making it clear that I'm not 100% set on the TT15. But if I do go for it, I'm not sweating the cartridge at all. Perhaps this is a naive outlook, but at < $1800 for the TT15 package,  I consider the Virtuoso a throw in. Beyond that, there is always next month, next year, and the year after...