Help,Allaerts or Transfiguration

I lived with a Temper-V for four years.Before that,the Temper Supreme.On a Graham 2.2 arm,and Sota Cosmos Series IV table.
The Temper-V was as great an improvement over the fine sounding Temper Supreme as the Orpheus is over the "V"!
The "V" is a wonderful cartridge,regardless of other possibly superior designs.It has fabulous detail and is very neutral.It does not have high gain,so your phonostage should have some good output.
If you come by the "V"(it is no longer made)you will surely love it!Of that I am sure.
I have no experience with the Allaerts.Sorry.
Good luck.

I know several people who have very expensive Allaerts (one person's cartridge is over $10k) and they all love the cartridge. In just my casual listen, I think they make terrific, natural sounding (not flashy) cartridges. But, they do have very precise requirements for loading and the particular phonostage/step up transformer that is used. One friend is currently working on optimizing it into the Boulder phono stage (this is an incredibly flexible and adjustable stage, so, having difficulty with this stage says something about how touchy this cartridge can be).

I have two friends with Orpheus cartridges and I had the Orpheus in my system for two weeks (replacing a Lyra Titan) just to hear how it sounds. This too is a fantastic cartridge. It is, compared to the Lyra, just a touch midrange prominent and not quite as open and "fast" sounding on top. It was, overall, a bit less detailed, but also not as dry or analytical sounding. Great cartridge. I also got to listen to a Phoenix cartridge in a familiar system, although the table/arm combination was new to me (Linn/Naim Aro). This vinyl rig sounded fantastic. Very dynamic, vivid and lively (also a touch midrange prominent).

I like the current Orpheus and Phoenix a LOT better than the Temper series. The Tempers I listened to sounded a bit too polite and drab for my taste.

Thank you for your informative posts.
I have an opportunity to purchase a NIB(I think)Temper V at a fair price.but I have wanted to try an Allaerts for some time now.The price differential is considerable,so I'm stumped.
If a specific phono amp is required for the Allaerts then I guess the choice might be made for me.
Larryi,do you know which phono stage that might be.

Having just bought my first Allaerts cartridge,I am a little biased.I have heard any number of cartridges ranging from $3-10K.Clearaudio,Symphonic,Levenson,Myabi and a few others.
I must admit that I wish I had taken the plunge much sooner,it would have saved me a lot of money.The performance of the entry MC-1 eco has been an eye-opener,it is lively and detailed without losing its' musicality.As you progress up the line,the output goes down.At .5mV,it is an easy cartridge to amplify.I have found the Aqvox phono stage a good match with the "eco",as well as being an affordable option.
Just my two-cents from a very satisfied Allaerts owner.
Best of luck in your search-Happy Holidays!

I believe that what Larryi is referring to, is the warning about what phono preamp characteristics can damage the cartridge, in a review on 6moons.com

Here is link to the review in question.

6moons review of MC2 Cartridge

And, here is a portion of the review, if you don't want to go to the site.

"And now for a dire word of warning: your phono stage may well be an Allaerts killer. All of them from the MC1B up have incredibly thin coils. If there is any DC kickback in your phono stage or other funny stuff, it will melt the coils and you are looking at a seriously expensive rebuild. Melt the coils? Yes. They are 20 micron thick pure 24 carat gold. I wouldn't even hold them too close to a hot lamp.
The melting coil issue has happened to several owners. It is your responsibility to make sure the phono stage you use is going to leave the cartridge intact (see what I mean about high maintenance?). Now of course I worry about lightning storms. There must be DC kickback there so I unplug from the phono stage. And with the Groove, I turn it on at least 2 hours before connecting up the cartridge leads. So far, fingers crossed, that seems to work. If in doubt, get in contact both with your phonostage designer and with Jan Allaerts to see if there are issues before there are issues. Then there is the phonostage loading issue. Both the Finish and the Formula One are very choosy about phonostages. They want to see an imput load of 845 ohms (pretty exactly) and can be very unhappy if they don't. In fact they can sound thin, compressed and lifeless if not looking at close on the right load. But the gains when getting it right are in the 'promised land' territory. These cartridges have some very serious following. Isenburg in Germany is so obsessed that he built a state of the art (15,000 euro) phonostage specifically for these two cartridges. That's how deep the devotion for these cartridges can go."

I too have read nothing but glorious reviews of the Allaerts, and a friend (from another city) has one and loves it. (I have not gotten to listen to one myself, although I wish I could!) Also, realize that the Allaerts have really, really low outputs, (usually around 0.1 to 0.2 mv) so a really high gain (70db+) are required. This "usually" means using a solid state phono preamp.

Good Luck in your search.