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Your FAVORITE carts?

I've just been back into the vinyl game for two years and have not had time to compare and develop preferences yet. But I really like the Stanton 680 with en elliptical aftermarket stylus that I got on the Lenco L75 stock tonearm. Not just because of the sound it puts out but also for the value. Cartridge was 10 bucks and stylus 25.
 
Best tracker: Shure V15V-MR. I had to retire it once I used my last genuine Shure stylus replacement.

Best MC: Dynavector 17D3. Runner up had to be the Dynavector XX2 Mk. II (which I still have). The 17D3 is less colored...actually, very free of coloration (it had a very short 1.7mm diamond cantilever).

Best MM (which I'm using now): Nagaoka MP500. Tracks well and has a nice full sound to it.
 
Thanks for all the recommendations. I've set a number of ebay alerts to grab some interesting new carts. A lot of these recommendations (Pickering, Nagaoka, Precept, Osawa)
are things I probably wouldn't have considered otherwise.

For the Pickering fans, I read somewhere that the NP/ATE uses the same (or similar) generator to the V-15, is that true?

I wish Dynavectors were a bit more affordable, I'd love to hear one.

As I setup eBay alerts, are there Nagaoka carts that should be avoided, or are they all pretty good at their respective price points?
 
scootsity5 said:
As I setup eBay alerts, are there Nagaoka carts that should be avoided, or are they all pretty good at their respective price points?
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I've heard good things about a few of their models. My buddy bought a lower-priced Nagaoka (MP-150?) as a spare while one of his other cartridges (Soundsmith Zephyr) was being retipped and he was quite impressed by it. Others here have been impressed with them also. As with other brands, you can start with a less expensive cartridge and upgrade it by purchasing a better stylus model as a replacement, at a later time.

scootsity5 said:
I wish Dynavectors were a bit more affordable, I'd love to hear one.
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DV10X5 would be their entry-level cartridge. You may see others on eBay that are broken (including models that are no longer made), but as was explained to me, broken cantilevers are sometimes not the only issue--sometimes the wire suspension inside the cartridge also breaks, or has other unseen internal damage. A broken $200 Dyna plus a retip fee might seem affordable until you realize that broken cartridge is a gamble.
 
scootsity5 said:
. . . I wish Dynavectors were a bit more affordable, I'd love to hear one.

As I setup eBay alerts . . .
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It sounds like you don't live near any Dynavector dealers. I've been very lucky in that regard. If you'd like some sour grapes material, years ago I brought home from the dealer a Dynavector 10X5, Dynavector P75 phono stage, Grado Green1, and Grado PH-1 phono stage. For far less money than the Dynavector package, the Grado combination gave me a more appealing and insightful performance.
 
The Audio Technica AT-VM95ML, closely followed by the Pickering XV-15 and ADC QLM36/iii. Been itching to try out a few others, but cartridge-swapping isn't the most convenient with a Dual 1229...
 
Blue Shadow said:
Ortofon MC30Super is best sound I have had in my rig. Had other 'better' cartridges but maybe that cart/arm combo was something.
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That's why it's hard to recommend a cartridge to someone--there are so many variables. Different arm, different turntable. Different phono stages. Mine might sound horrible; another person with the same cartridge might get a completely different result with wonderful sound. I've heard some expensive carts that I immediately didn't like; I heard others that were rather modest that sounded much better. And then we throw in personal taste, and what the rest of our system sounds like. ;)

Reviews and personal accounts of cartridges are always helpful, as you can get a general idea of how well it performs and what its basic sound is like. But the end result has to go through our own "filters" to determine whether we like it or not in our own systems.
 
I ran a Micro Acoustics 2002E for a lot of years, still have it, listen to it every now and again. I've had Dynavector and Denon MCs. Good carts, but not an MA. I run an ADC XLM II on my SL-3300. It does a lot right and very little wrong. On my SL-MA1 (p mount arm) I rotate an ADC PSX-30, Azden YM20PE and a Stanton L720, my fave is the Stanton.
 
scootsity5 said:
Hello all,

Asking for purely subjective thoughts here, what are your favorite carts and why?

They don't have to have the greatest specs or anything, I'm just curious what people love and why? What deck do you love it on? Are there other carts you love on other decks?

While I think this is just an interesting conversation prompt, I'm also interested because I think it's time to expand my cart collection, and I am hoping to get some ideas of some cool stuff that doesn't pop up in the 'best $x carts' threads. So, odd balls, specific use-cases, etc are all very much of interest.

So, I'll start things off with my own.

My daily driver is a DL-160 that I got from the dude who taught me how to fix turntables and ****. It had a bent cantilever, and I used it that way for years. Once it was discontinued, I sent it to soundsmith for the ruby retip. It's on my TD-160 super, which has that ultra low mass sme arm. The cart is not a great match for the arm. But, the arm has a liquid dampener on it, so when that's filled with goo, they actually match extremely well. It took a lot of tweaking with dampening goop, but it's a spectacular setup now.

My go-to for other people is an OM 10 and pretty much has been since the Shure M92 was discontinued.

The OM10 is to me, kinda boring but it's also one of those carts everyone will like, it's so middle of everything. There's nothing that sounds bad on it. And, it's so readily upgraded that it's a good way to get people into working up the food chain.

My former go-to was an M92. Mostly because I lived near Shure and they were cheap in Chicago, and for the money, they sounded fine. I've got limited experience with the Shure range, but I always enjoyed how musical they were.
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Recently I grew to appreciate the "old" AT95, 95EX in particular.

I didn't have incredibly high expectations (regardless of the good reviews), but the more I use it - the better it seems to be getting. There are lots of myths about EX (having higher channel separation than standard, green "E" one, and sounding good on worn & dusty albums) which I wouldn't necessarily agree or confirm, BUT the EX does seem to bring out a lot more details than standard 95E, without the cost of amplifying, adding surface noise.

So in a way, that statement regarding channel separation IS somewhat accurate, despite the fact that the actual (technical) separation is about the same as with AT-95E. In fact I'm noticing certain parts, faint vocal backgrounds (usually on one of the channels, either left of right) which I never even realized before, knew they existed. And unlike the VM95, the sound coming out from 95EX is more on the brighter side, clear & crisp.
 
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