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In Reply to: RE: MM vs MC is MC THAT much better? posted by MannyE on December 29, 2016 at 05:54:12
How good is your turntable? How about the rest of your signal chain? One absurd extreme would be a Koetsu mounted on a $250 Music Hall. You're not going to hear half of what you paid for. You're probably better off keeping your Goldring, and upgrading it down the line to one of their higher end models.
Maybe it's just me, but I've got a pretty decent turntable, one that should be all rights at least have something like a Shelter 901 on it. But I always end up going back to a good MM. Better a really good MM than a mediocre MC.
Edits: 12/29/16Follow Ups:
My turntables are middle of the range. A restored Sony PS-X5 and an old Music Hall MMF-5. Later this year I will be upgrading the Sony to a new table, either the VPI Prime or the Technics SL 1200 G. I like the idea of the Technics not needing any additional speed controls but I want to hear them both before I pull the trigger.
That's why I am interested in the MC vs MM subject.
You seem to come down on the MM side and actually, at the higher ranges, the prices are similar. So it comes down to sound. I also have no pets and children are 15 years old and girls so I don't have to worry about little hands or curious paws.
The downstream equipment varies from flea powers monoblocks and folded horns to ridiculously overpowered solid state. My system is always in flux that way. At the moment my favorite speakers are a pair of Thiel 04a powered by an old Denon PMA 750 that I recapped and cleaned up. Later in the new year I've got my eye on some TOTL Marantz gear that's sitting in a neighbor's house gathering dust as well as some classic Fisher tube amps I'm stalking like a hungry tiger.
VPI TT then it's time for an upgrade to MC and rest of your ancillary TT component. In the meantime stick to what you have.
If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well
(Proverb)
I hate to be a contrarian, but own both a VPI Prime (w/Pheonix Roadrunner and Eagle) and a Technics SL 1200 G and prefer the latter pretty much in every way. The VPI Prime is excellent in every way, so please don't take my comment the wrong way. These are both superb TTs. Anyway, back to Manny's question, I also own a long list of both MM and MC cartridges. At the moment I am smitten with an Ortofon Per Winfeld, which is a LOMC. I also have a Cadenza Black, a 2M Black, a 2M Mono SE, and AT 150ANV, and AT 33 Mono ANV. In another system, I have a Shure V15-Vmr on a VPI HW19/SME Series III. I love them all and use them all. If I had to choose just one for the dessert island, it would probably be a MM, probably the Shure, but maybe the 2M Black. Why? Well it is because they are easier to live with both amplification-wise and because of the user changeable stylus feature. Also, for every hour of critical listening that I do, there are perhaps 5x - 10x hours of music as back drop to other activities from cooking to reading. Finally, I listen to a lot of old jazz and the recordings generally do not benefit as much from the superiority of the best MC cartridges. Consider that guys like Doug Sax and Gordon Holt both favored MM cartridges (Stanton and Shure respectively) as being closer to the sound of the master tapes that spawned the LPs that they were lucky enough to be able to compare. With that said, there is no question that my MC cartridges sound magnificent so it is nice to have options.Regards,
Bill
Edits: 12/29/16 12/29/16
I agree. MCs are that much more demanding with the quality of the preamps - especially when it comes to noise. When it comes to MMs the higher end Stanton/Pickering models (especially the low impedance models) remain the most neutral and measurably flat responses of all my cartridges. I prefer them and the Shure V15VMR to any of my AT MMs.
It is such a shame that STanton let quality slip drastically in the last couple of decades before they finally closed down the cartridge business.
Using the Stanton/Pickering low impedance cartridges as a comparison to my MCs at a moderate price point, there is little too choose between them sonically (as long as the Stanton styli are properly made and aligned which was the problem in the latter years). The Stanton styli have the edge in terms of tracking ability in many cases - for example an XLZ3500E vs Denon DL301/II, the Pickering out tracks the Denon. My Denon DL304 has a low mass tip and is equivalent in tracking ability. Sonically, I wouldn't be able to tell which was an MM and which was an MC on a blind test.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Thank you Bill!
Very informative and especially so because you actually own the tables in question.
nt
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