Cartridges - $1000

[whubbard]

Alright,
I'll keep it short and sweet.
Best low output (MC or MI or MM) (around .5mV) cartridge. What are your opinions, and I know there will be disagreement.
I am personally leaning towards the Grado Statement Master1. Lets try and keep it under $1000.

What do you all think?

-West

[ALBQ]

West,
Selecting which cartridge will depend a lot on your turntable, tonearm, electronics and speakers. Can you share more on what you have and what you are looking for?
Cheers - ALBQ


Current Vinyl Setup - Rega P5, Dynavector 17D3 & Jolida JD-9a

[whubbard]

The table is going to be DIY. A Teres clone. Full details here:
DIY - Turntable (Images at Bottom)

The arm is an RB250, rewired, and with VTAF and new Counterweight. I am going to drill holes along the arm in order to reduce weight.

Thanks,
West

[planet10]

THe Grado would be on my short-list.

dave

[limono]

I'd skip Grado on Rega arm. I had Sonata on my P9 (RB1000) and it was boring, flat and sybillant. Since it's a contradiction of what most of the people
think of Grado carts I think (and one of the gents I talked to) that GRADO/Rega is a poor match. I liked Benz Glider way more than Grado , heck even old Stanton 6800El was more enjoyable

[whubbard]

So in terms of sound (warmth, neutral, flat, clarity, etc.) how would you compare these three:

1)
Lyra Dorian MC 0.6mV
2)
Benz Micro ACE SL S Class Low MC 0.4mV
3)
Benz Micro Glider SL S Class MC 0.4mV (Stereophile seems to like the ACE better...)
4)
Grado Statement Mater1 MI 0.5mV (Still 'barely' my first choice)
5)
Soundsmith SMMC1 MI 2.12mV

Thank you all so much for your help.

-West

[audio-kraut]

Sorry to interrupt - no cartridge sounded good to me on the rega RB 250.
I had this arm, modded to the fullest, and it stank when compared to either an MG1 air arm, the SME 3009 2 or the SME 3009 3.

To my mind, this arm is a waste of money, at least with ANY of the cartridges I had tried.

I had used only below 500$ cartridges, from ortofon MC 3, X3 MC turbo, X5MC, Shure 500 Ultra, Shure V15VXMR, Goldring 1042, Denon DL 110 and my favourite - Denon DL 103.

This arm seems to revel in picking up all the surface noise - and even finds apparently noise where there is none, prone to high levels of sibilants...

All the other arms I have tried with those systems performed grades better.

The mentioned arms still are running on my TT's, the rega went to ebay - sold at a loss with over 200$ "improvements".

[whubbard]

I had this arm, modded to the fullest, and it stank when compared to either an MG1 air arm, the SME 3009 2 or the SME 3009 3. To my mind, this arm is a waste of money, at least with ANY of the cartridges I had tried. I had used only below 500$ cartridges, from ortofon MC 3, X3 MC turbo, X5MC, Shure 500 Ultra, Shure V15VXMR, Goldring 1042, Denon DL 110 and my favourite - Denon DL 103. This arm seems to revel in picking up all the surface noise - and even finds apparently noise where there is none, prone to high levels of sibilants...

Thank you for your input. The SME 309 seems like a wonderful arm, but is out of my price range right now. Maybe down the road I will upgrade to it (I'll just have to make a new arm board top, which will be very quick), but for now I'm only going to spend a few hundred on upgrading the Rega. Maybe it will hold me back, but that is just how it's going to be.

Also, I must say I have found it very different in terms of surface noise. I had a new MFSL record, and even with my lowly Bias II cartridge, there was NO surface noise, so I don't think it's the arm...maybe there was something wrong with yours?

-West

[audio-kraut]

maybe there was something wrong with yours?

That could well be, but set up was correct, and I compared this arm side by side with the others. I had mine sourced from JA Mitchell.

BTW - I basically built my SME 3009 2 from parts sourced from ebay, and paid about 1/2 this way what the arm usually cost.
My SME 3009 3 cost me 220$ three years ago.

[analog_sa]

Originally posted by whubbard


The SME 309 seems like a wonderful arm,

Indeed but this was not the arm mentioned by audio-kraut. Having used many 3009mk2, mk3 i would say neither is much better than a Rega, especially not the mk3.