Audio Technica AT-150MLX

Ortofon 2M Bronze

Goldring 1042

All these choices meet my requirements.  They are around the price point that I am willing to pay, they have fine line styli, reportedly excellent tracking and are all widely considered to be good quality cartridges.  They are all also MM, I think going MC will just give me a headache with all the extra things to think about.  Also, I won't be able to afford a step-up transformer any time soon.  The new arm and cart is pretty much the annual hifi budget gone in one go and my next upgrade is going to be one of Grahams excellent phono stages.  

I can get the AT quite a bit cheaper than the others.  Reviews I have read suggest that it compares favourably with the 2M Black (which is outside my price range).  My only concern is that it is said to be sensitive to system matching and can sound excessively bright.  I have been told that my system is pretty bright sounding anyway, one guy even pulled a face when I told him what I had got , so this may be a step too far.  I am pretty new to critical listening but I think that I prefer a 'brighter' sound anyway, obviously though there are limits.  The Ortofon I am told is a 'safe' choice and represents a good all rounder.  The Goldring is by some margin the most expensive and (on paper, at least) by far the inferior of the other two so I am leaning away from that one.  On the other hand it is a very well respected cart and has been around for a long time.

I think they are all on a similar level with regards to quality but what I am interested in are the characteristics of the 'sound'.  I listen to a pretty eclectic mix of music, basically I will listen to anything I enjoy, which makes choosing more difficult.  Most of the things I listen to tend to fall under folk or metal (not exactly similar).  What unites most of my listening, however, is a love of the female vocal.  So a good compromise would be the best cartridge for reproducing the female voice.  Obviously I don't listen exclusively to female vocalists but that is the element that I would like to sound best.

I would greatly appreciate any advice that anyone could give me in this matter as I don't have the experience or knowledge to get any further by myself.  Unless I just pick one and jump and that is not my style.

Your dilemma is not an unusual one.The closest I can come to answering is that I ran a Goldring G1042 for  number of years in a Tecnoarm on a GyroSE - and I liked it a lot. It performed very well with female vocal, classical, rock, jazz - in fact anything I played . . . If I had to characterise the sound I'd put it at slightly on the warmer side of neutral, with a nicely defined treble, lucid mids and a very satisfying bass. I was using it with Graham's Era Gold V phono stage.

I know there are members here who use Audiomods arms, and IIRC AT150MLX too, so hopefully they'll chip in.

Something you probably haven't considered is a NOS SAE1000E (or LT) from Thakker in Germany. It's a high output MC. I bought an E and liked it so much went back for an LT (line trace, not Linear Tracker!) as a spare. It's everything the G1042 was, but a little more punchier. I haven't used it on a Rega or Rega-derivative arm (not that an Audiomods is a "derivative" arm since I believe only the arm tube is related to Regas), but on my Sony Biotracer it's the cart I always go back to.

Advising on cartridges is fraught with pitfalls because there's so many other variables to consider, and not least one person's preferences over another. 

I have, at one point or another, considered all of the carts suggested so far.  I have read through a lot of forums on this subject .  I looked into the Audio Note as several people have said that it is like the Goldring only better but being unable to get a price got on my nerves pretty quickly so I just gave up.  It may be worth trying to email a supplier.  I found a price for the IQ2 and so I had assumed the IQ1 would be closer to £350 than £300 extrapolating downward.  

At one point I had actually decided to go for a Nagaoka as I had heard great things about them, but the only Fine Line version is the MP-500 which is way over my price range.  Besides which I was scared off by the apparently short predicted lifespan of the stylus.  

I have actually come across recommendations for SAE cartridges before and I was quite interested, but I couldn't find anywhere that sold them - only an endless string of forums where people are saying that they also couldn't find one .  Also, as it is an MC I am worried about maintaining it properly.  Tempted as I am the whole point is rather academic as Thakkar are out of stock, and given that it is NOS I am not expecting that to change any time soon.  Thanks for pointing me in the direction of Thakkar though, best price I have found so far for the Ortofon 2M Bronze (about £235 with P&P)

You make a good case for the Goldring.  A touch of warmth would, hopefully, help to counteract the brightness rather than adding to it.  Not that I think it needs counteracting but as long as we remain close to neutral it's all good.  Quality treble and mids are always good when dealing with vocals.  Analysis is something I forgot to mention.  It is another thing I seem to like at higher levels than most and another characteristic of my set up.  Analytical is all good to me, buying hifi (for me at least) is all about hearing more detail in the music.  The best price I have seen on the Goldring is £280, but if I was willing to take a risk used ones seem to go through eBay pretty regularly for about the £100 mark (which looks like an absolute steal).  The AT on the other hand I have seen for £215 new, or I found a used one (boxed, about 50hrs use) for £165 - so aside from the used Goldring this is the pound saving option.  I don't really want to go above £300 if I can help it, as I said that's the annual budget all gone  so any more and corners will have to be cut elsewhere.

I am rather tempted by the SAE but I am pretty set on getting a fine line stylus and it doesn't look like I can get the 1000lt.  They are meant to sound better on older records, reduce record wear, and last nearly twice as long as elliptical styli.  Sounds like a win win situation to me  But then again maybe I am falling for the hype.  Is it really that big a deal?  What concerns me most, however, is that I may love the sound of it and in a few years time when it wears out I won't be able to get another one.  Looking round the web it does seem to be getting rave reviews, some even saying it beats carts in the $700-900 range.  I even found a video on Youtube with an SAE1000e playing through a Graham Slee Reflex no less.  The guys' stylus was disgracefully dusty but it sounded pretty good.  His name was Bob Wood... anybody know him?   

This was my first effort at a TT video. The DAC's been moved to a different system, and the pre-amp sold, both having been replaced by a Majestic. The Reflex M's going nowhere!

That's a really generous offer, thank you.  I will likely take you up on it.  The only issue is timing, I'm not sure if you are in a hurry to get rid of the cartridge.  My Audiomods arm is still being built, with an estimated finish date of the 14/04 after which it will be coming in the post.  Until I have my new arm I can't install an AT cartridge as I have no VTA adjustment, Regas only pretty much at this arm height.  If you are alright with me picking it up in a couple of weeks then that would be great.

I am struggling with the decision at the moment but after some rather intensive research on diamond stylus shapes, prompted by your IQ suggestion, I think that I would like to try the AT out.  If I like it then I will likely keep it.  If not then I think I will probably go for the Audio Note IQ1.  The IQ3 is well outside the price range that I am willing to pay for a cartridge, but I would think about upgrading to the IQ2 in the future.  When the time comes for stylus replacement I would be able to step up to an IQ2 stylus if I could scrape together an extra £80 so it is possible.  The SAE is quite tempting but I would only really be interested if I could get the LT, and I am still a bit reticent about buying an MC in any case.  My research also suggested that the AT would be a better tracker than the Ortofon as the geometry of the 2M series' diamonds are surprisingly bad considering how popular they are (compared to my other options at any rate).  Just goes to show, it is not all about the diamond.

You don't know the half of it  I overthink everything, all the time.  I get pretty great results but I cause myself a hell of a lot of stress in the process.  That's why when I find a good brand I tend to stick with it, it saves going through the hours of research and background reading more than once 

Oh, and thanks for the link.  That's the best price I've seen on the MP-500, still outside my price range though.

On a related note, does anybody know what sort of price I should be asking for a lightly used Rega RB303 tonearm?  They sell separately brand new for £350 so I was thinking about £200, does that seem reasonable? or do they not sell very well on the second hand market?  Going to put the money in a pot marked 'Accession' which is sadly rather empty at the moment .  That and whatever tiny amount I get for my Rega Elys II.  I was thinking of listing it in the 'Sell your gear' section on this forum but everyone I have met thus far has had a far better, or at least comparable, arm already so there doesn't seem much point.  I had a look in it anyway and I wish I hadn't because now I am really tempted by DaveG's Reflex.  Must stay strong and think about Accessions...

Finally got the new tonearm installed!  Here is a cruddy iPhone photo!  I will do a better one at some point to upload to the '...show me yours' thread.  All set up and baerwalded with Drewan77s AT150MLX that he kindly lent me.

Trying to decide what to do about the cartridge now.  It's a bit difficult though as I haven't got that many clean LPs.  I won't play any unclean LPs with someone else's stylus, so no Aqualung .  I have been cleaning my new vinyl as I have been unsealing them but I haven't got round to going over my back catalogue yet, so I am quite limited as to what I can play unless I can get round to cleaning some more.  I did a bit of an on-the-fly record dealer style visual grading the other day and sorted my records into groups depending on how dirty/damaged they are.  I seem to have a lower proportion of new vinyl than I thought, probably because they have thicker spines and so stand out more on the shelf, but I have only found two discs that failed to live up to at lease VG- standard.  The idea is to start with the best ones and work my way to the rubbish.  I haven't really prioritised record cleaning as I had a pretty awful cart so I didn't care if it wore down faster, and I have mostly been listening to new records recently anyway.

I do like the AT.  It really digs out the details, I am already finding stuff that I hadn't noticed before.  Percussion sounds lovely and crisp and precise.  And I definitely do not find it too bright or harsh, it fits in nicely with the overall sound of my system.  But I am thinking it does sound quite sterile.  The Rega was a lot livelier, but then again it would be what with skating about all over the place (an exaggeration but you know what I mean).  It's a bit like getting out of a hovercraft and stepping aboard the bullet train, the hovercraft may be more fun but there is a significantly reduced risk of the journey ending in fiery death.  I think I would be happy to live with the AT but I can't help but wonder whether the Goldring/Audio Note might be even better .  I will have to try and play some more records before I decide.

I liked the 1042 a lot, but the one thing I remember reading from a post by Peter Q was that the IQ's suspension was a little stiffer than the Goldring

edit: found it @ vinylengine -

"Dear (name removed),

I have a Zyx R100 that I use on my Kenwood DD; this is a very light cartridge and I fixed it with some heavy Soundsmith thumbscrew bolts last week which firmed up the sound no end. Now I know that cartridge weight is nothing to do with compliance, but . .  

In the end I got fed up and decided to do an accuracy comparison.  I have just bought a shiny new LP which came with a CD copy of the same album.  So I thought I would listen to the LP and then go straight on to the CD and see how they compared.  The theory is, as it was related to me, that CDs being digital cannot be reproduced inaccurately and are less prone to colouration and as such make a good datum sample to compare vinyl playback to.  

The LP sounded marvellous.  I enjoyed it so much that when I went to repeat the first track for the comparison (as it was the track that I know the best so I wanted it fresh in my mind) I ended up listening to the whole LP a second time.  The CD on the other hand was hugely disappointing in comparison.  It didn't sound half as good.  The sound stage sounded practically two dimensional, bass was less well defined, treble was also lacking, and the whole thing sounded constrained and jumbled.  I started getting fed up with it half way through.  And it wasn't because it was my third playthrough of the album, because I was still humming it for most of the rest of the day.

So if my record deck sounds so much better than my CD player and I enjoy listening to it, what on earth do I think is wrong with it?   The little doubting voice in my head is now in a pretty unsupportable position and so in conclusion I think I am going to be sticking with the Audio Technica AT150MLX.  This little experiment is also another nail in the coffin of the ifi iTube - I swear my CD player sounded far more capable before I added this thing in to the chain.  And considering it has filters that are meant to improve sound staging and definition I don't think it is really living up to the hype.

Hi, The album is a recent release (2014) which came out simultaneously on CD and Vinyl so I would assume that the same master was used for both versions.  Vinyl is usually an afterthought these days so I doubt they would go to the trouble of mastering it separately.  Pressing issues only effect vinyl so would only figure in the event of the CD sounding better.  I can't really defend the theory as it is not my theory .  It's just something I happened upon on Vinyl Engine.  I needed some basis for comparison to try and break the deadlock that I was in and I hoped that this test would prove useful - which it did.

When I auditioned my amp and cd player I auditioned a P******t Debut Carbon Esprit with an Ortofon 2M Red, the CD and Phono where pretty much on a par.  When I bought the RP6 with Elys 2 it was noticeable better than the CD, richer and fuller sounding as well as better defined.  The RP6 with Audiomods V and AT150MLX completely crushes the CD.  But then it should considering the price difference .  The RRP of the AT150MLX is a mere £4 less than I paid for my CD player.  As such the CD was never going to be an ideal, but it serves very well as a known baseline.

As far as the cartridge is concerned I am definitely going to persevere with it, in fact I have now sent payment for it to Drewan77 so it is mine now.  I have learned that adjusting VTA can help a thin sounding setup so that is going to be my next step.   I haven't experimented with adjusting it yet, I just used a protractor and the manufacturers recommendation, maybe with a little tweaking it may sound even better.  I am going to upgrade my phono stage as soon as I have the cash so that will definitely bring an improvement, and I will also be able to experiment with the loading then.  After that I am planning to experiment with different cables phono stage to amp, starting with a loan of an AgSat.

As far as the iTube is concerned I bought an NOS Tesla tube shortly after buying it, once I get that cleaned up I am going to try tube-rolling it.  If that doesn't bring a significant improvement then that particular little piggy is on its way to market.

Whoops, yep that's a good point.  That had slipped my mind, all that RIAA shenanigans is bound to alter the sound.  Again I can only say it is not my theory so I see no reason to defend it.  It was quite a while ago that I read it but I'm pretty sure that the guy who posted it didn't mention that either.  I'm very much still learning about this stuff and sometimes it takes a while for bits of information to float together in my brain.

I grew up with Vinyl and it has always been my preferred medium so I deliberately set out to build a turntable based system.  I read early on that in a turntable based system your budget should be weighted to the source end, so that's what I did.  Initially I wasn't even going to bother getting a new CD player.  I was just going to carry on using my trusty old Aiwa XC-700 (which I bought for £14 on eBay ).  But I got such good deals on pretty much everything I had some cash left over and the CD6005 deal was pretty tempting.  So my system was intentionally weighted nearly 4:1 in favour of vinyl at the offset, at this point it is something like 6:1.  I certainly can't afford to take both mediums to anything like a proper high fidelity level so I made a choice.

These days CDs to me are just a cheap way of getting 'lossless' digital tracks to feed my NAS, with the added bonus of doubling as a hard archive.  Digital files are just something I play in the background when I am reading or working.  If I want to really listen and just enjoy the music I put on a record.  My only motivation to upgrade my digital front end is for playing albums that are not available on vinyl.  Eventually I'd like to work on improving my digital audio setup, better DAC, headphones etc but I won't be throwing the silly money at it that I have been spending on vinyl .

As to varying VTA I have never done it so I can't be certain what the magnitude of the effect is, and I was seriously bad at trigonometry at school, but I am not so certain that tiny alterations wouldn't make a big difference.  It is all a matter of scale, with the stylus tip being so tiny a variation of even a mm at the other end of the arm would cause a significant amount of movement.  How this translates in terms of sound I have no idea.  Andrew might have some insight on this as he has the micrometer version of the Audiomods arm so he is actually capable of tiny VTA adjustments.  Either way I'll see how it goes.

Graham's little rant caused a synapse to fire somewhere, I think I have got myself lost somehow, I think the thread I was reading might actually have been about vinyl EQ.  I think it might have been a review/discussion about a phono stage that had several different EQ settings and whether there was actually any benefit to that.  So I think the test may have been using a CD as an EQ free sample to determine what difference each setting made (there was no flat mode).  Maybe he went on to say more about using CDs for comparative testing or maybe it is just my memory being selective.  I don't know - You go to university where they teach you how to make effective notes and then you spend the rest of your life not bothering and getting all your facts mixed up .  I did do quite a lot of reading on the subject when I was trying to decide what phono stage to get.

You forgot Flexi Discs  .  I've got a couple of them I inherited from my Grandad.  I don't think I would ever dare to put them on my turntable, I'd be terrified about damaging my stylus.  You know there is actually a company in Europe still making them!  A scary thought.

Richardl60 wrote: I have adjustable CD input on my current amp.

I have actually never heard of that feature, what does it do?  I don't pay much attention to CD specific features so maybe I just missed it somewhere along the line, I do like to know what options are out there though.