@jasonbourne71 Wow, you're running an old-school, stiff MC in maybe the lowest mass tonearm ever. How's the bass?
Need some help picking my first MC Cartridge
I have recently purchased an Icon PS1 Mk II tube Phono Preamp. and was thinking of purchasing a seperate MC cartridge and head to interchange with my Nagoaka MP 300 MM cartridge, which I am very happy with. This is my first MC Cartridge so this is more of a chance to compare MC versus MM Cartridges. Some suggestions have been Denon 103 or the Hana Red, The Icon Preamp has a fixed MC load setting of 100 ohms. The Sansui SR 525 Direct Drive Turntable that I will be using has an interchangeable cartridge head, so VTA height, tracking weight, anti-skating adjustments may be required for each cartridge but should not take more than 20 minutes to adjust. I have read that some low output cartridges may be preferable to high output, but I am not sure how this matches up with the Icon Preamp. I am a little in the weeds here with the technical information when it comes to cartridges so be gentle.
My listening preference is more to the musical / warm vinyl side. Gear: Tube preamp, Class "A" amp , alternating with a tube Integrated, Wilson Benesch Square 2 Speakers, Rel Subs (x2). I split my listening about 50/50 Vinyl/Digital.
My Budget is up to $1500.00
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I have owned numerous MC cartridges over many many years, including, at one time, the Delos, I would not call the Delos warm sounding. To my ears it leans on the analytical side of the sound spectrum. A major thing to consider in addition to preamp matching is tonearm compatability The cartridge needs to mate well to the the tonearm. Get this wrong and at best, you won't get the most out of your cartridge, at worst, you will have tracking error and distortion. I don't know much about your Sansui but from what I gather it is a 70s vintage table with a typical S shaped tonearm. Although you have a $1500 budget, going up the cartridge food chain too much and you many have a cartridge too demanding to perform well in your tonearm. The Shibata sytlus on the Hana S might be too much for it. The Hana cartridges are a good choice but considier the E. Also the Benz cartridges, they are quite musical and warm sounding as well. So consider the Hana E, Dynavector 20x or one of the AT cartridges also suggested. Denon cartidges perform best on tonearms with a lot of mass, whcih yours isn't so I'd avoid those. |
@alvinnir2 I have my Denon DL-103 on my Technics SL-1200GR. Even after I bought a fairly heavy Ortofon LH-4000 headshell to use it still didn't sound very special. But a friend suggested I add weight to the headshell so I Blu-tacked a nickel on to it and it sounded much better. So you are right the Denon probably isn't the best match for the Sansui arm but there are work arounds to increase the tonearm's effective mass to better match the cartridge. |
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