Recommended cartridges or ones you at curious about

Ortofon OM and 500 series are shite......


IMHO of course.

Ditto.

"Thanks for your interest, Mr K."

It's ok. Glad to have been of some assistance.

My £15 elliptical might come tomorrow. Should get a 15SS as well while they still have them. £125 for a stylus is still a lot to pay for me. For what it is though - Shibata + beryllium - I suppose it's pretty reasonable.

Practically all the cartridges I've had have been MM. Can't ever recall having a spitty one. Maybe I've just been been lucky.

I must admit I didn’t find them harshly gritty either. I’d use words such as “bland”, “weak”, “anaemic”, “dismal” and “depressing” to describe them. I haven’t tried OM40, but I did have OM30 and 540. I had no idea the 540 was a reasonably expensive cartridge. I thought it was a throwaway jobbie, based on its sound. I’ve binned a few OM10 and OM20s in my time.Im sure they weren’t expensive back in the 80s. In my box swapping days, they have cropped up on quite a few decks. Everybody buying a Dual or Ariston from the shop wanted shot of the OM and replaced it with an AT95e.

Huge caveat here in that I haven’t found a single MM I’d use. I find them dull and lacking detail. OM and 500 series are amongst the least enjoyable for me though.

MP500 should be ok in the right arm but the Musicmaker as i recall is a cheaper Grado 'bodged up' and with similar response failings (to me and a response plotter, dull dull dull!). Grado'd didn't used to be like this, so a conscious decision by the designers to tailor them (the prestige models at least) that way - the cheapest Black is saved by a tip resonance to bolser up the very high frequencies and over the decades, the cheapest Grado is often the most fun The current Black One model certainly is although sparkle doesn't come into it...

I can't turn the clock back westie, but I'd love us to travel back to the early 90's so we could do these cartridge comparisons together and compare notes under the same conditions. The early OM body lacks slit pole pieces and the design seems to like high capacitance to smooth it out a little, as did the VMS models that preceded them. The OM 'Super' bodies with slit poles are rather better behaved, but I'd never myself have called them 'weak' with the gear we used back then. All I have now is a OM5e and an OM Pro (silver body) as the BBC used and that one comes on a bit strong. I do have a 520mk2 in my Dual 1019 (new Ortofon stylus) and I love it to bits, but I suspect with a more refined lively system it'd be as rough as a badger's backside

Hmm Get some speakers with just a touch of 'warmth' and digital ain't clinical any more I keep reminding myself of the Dynausio Concept 60's and they're clinical and to me, soulless in the extreme regardless of source. Some audio people regard this as lovely detail and added definition, so ymmv here.

I know the 20-24. What I feel your mate heard was the deep crossover suckout these PMC's seem to have, the Dynaudios having a pronounced upper mid rise to make them sound more detailed?

www.soundandvision.com/content/dynaudio-audience-72-speaker-system-ht-labs-measures


Dynaudio do tailor their sound to the model range though currently, as the 'cheap floor-standers' at a mere three grand, I think these -

www.dynaudio.com/home-audio/evoke/evoke-30

- have much more 'body' to their tone in my recent experience..

Sorry for the thread drift.

Sounds pretty accurate and extremely perceptive. Yep, “suckout” would describe it. Dynaudios were definitely a bit “perky” and that often appeals to me so you’re probably right on both. The PMCs didn’t look like they were worth the money either.

I have just found an original AT20SLa stylus for a reasonable price.

The question now is ATN20SS or ATN20SLa....

The ATN15SS is in the house....

Me too.
Need to get in broken in. In all honestly I don’t expect it to be much better than the SLa.

I am very happy with the AT20SS. It sounds nicely balanced to these ears, without any obvious frequency lifts. It is nicely detailed, and makes me wonder why people need to go the way of expensive MC cartridges to enjoy music.

Definitely a keeper.

I like both 103 and OC9 but I agree they are very different. Tbh I really only like the better variants of the 103 which have more refined and extended treble and better defined bass. I’ve never heard the OC9 as bright, but others clearly have. Maybe I set it up differently, I dunno. Could just be different ears too, AT 32e is a sweeter variant which I could happily live with again.

I did have a Dynavector Karat 17D2 when I had a Rock. It wasn’t with me long but I can’t even remember if I tried it.

I'm still happy with my Lyra Helikon. I could live with Dynavector Karat 17D2 but did not care for a DV-20X2 which was a warmer sounding cartridge compared with my Lyra.