MM or MI Cartridge?

@mglik The kitty is probably empty after buying the Epoch 3, so this may be immaterial. John Wright sold his business at the last moment, and a few people have reported having Decca cartridges serviced satisfactorily by the new tech. There was even a new version of the Reference promised, but I see that has gone from their webpage now. Maybe there’s more info on their Facebook page, but I don’t do Facebook. See:

https://www.londondecca.com/

I own several different cartridges from different brands, and here's my opinion (emphasis on opinion).

Didn't care for ANY of the Nagaoka line (had the opportunity to get them at cost, so I bought several in the line). I love detail and clarity, and I found them too warm and fuzzy.

Love the Ortofon line. Again, have heard at least a dozen representing 3 different lines. Can't go wrong with the 2M Black LVB 250 or the MC Cadenza Bronze.

I'd also look at the Goldring 1042 MM. It's a happy medium between Nagaoka and Ortofon. I'd recommend their Moving Iron 2500 as well, but it looks like they don't make it anymore.

Finally, I LOVE Clearaudio's Charisma V2. Everything that's great about MM and MC combined. However, it BETTER be great considering it's price. 

There, THAT should thoroughly muddy the waters.

@owu497 Thanks for the Clearaudio tip, hadn't thought about that.

@jasonbourne71 

I auditioned the Soundsmith Strain Gauge for over two hours at Soundsmith's music room. It requires its own power supply/phono stage and will not plug directly into a line level input. It is a very dramatic cartridge leaning heavily on the bright side. It will also not handle the highest groove velocities. Were I to get another Soundsmith I would opt for the Hyperion which like the Voice is very neutral and an amazing tracker.

@terry9 I pretty clearly stated there were a lot of other factors " There are other factors, to be sure, vibration control, compliance, tracking ability, and several more but all of those can be controlled independently of the electromagnetic performance of the generator which is determined in large by the cartridge designers choice of MC, MI, or MM. I haven’t gone into cartridge loading which is important, but cannot compensate for the hysteresis inherent in the design." Viewed as a Venn Diagram, there’s a lot over potential overlaps. I have been a big Grado Fan for 50 years, but unfortunately Grados hum on my JMW Memorial 10.5 3D, and no amount of grounding magic could fix it.

@wolfie62 There are many forms of hysteresis, defined as the delay between input and output. What you describe is a single type, and seem to go further to claim that an aircore inductor has no time constant associated with its inductance. I do not claim any reduction in speed, but rather a delay in propagation. Faraday’s Law put it this way: "The electromotive force around a closed path is equal to the negative of the time rate of change of the magnetic flux enclosed by the path" Please note the ’time rate of change’. A magnet may also have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of the moment often form a loop or hysteresis curve, where there are different values of one variable depending on the direction of change of another variable.

In the elastic hysteresis of rubber, the area in the canter of a hysteresis loop is the energy dissipated due to material internal friction. Cartridge suspension materials such as rubber and some polyurethanes exhibit a high degree of elastic hysteresis, as do cantilever geometries and materials.

@lewm notes: "the three types do group well apart from each other if you base it on inductance. LOMCs are always much less than 100uH (micro-Henries). Many are actually down in the 10uH and below range. Whereas MI types typically measure in the low mH range, and a classic MM will measure 400mH and higher. The difference between 10uH (for a LOMC with low internal R) and 500mH (for a classic MM) is 50,000X!"

Although I do believe that the general ’flavor’ of MM, MC ,and MI tend to group along those lines, It is certainly NOT the only or deciding factor. However, I don’t think any serious listener would confuse, say, an Ortofon MM, with any number of MC carts, or would deny that Grados have a unique family character.