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In Reply to: Here you go. posted by mosin on April 17, 2007 at 18:15:35:
What I meant is the body of my Beta MKII is an alloy body drilled and tapped for the screws. It is not wood. Beyond that it is all I know. What I have read that there are a lot of similarity in many cartridges, but that they have difference in stylus, body, etc,,, which I suppose justifies some price differences??
Follow Ups:
Bear in mind that the bulk of the profit is made by the dealer, however. That said, not every brand has the same profit structure, performance level, or manufacturing cost. The trick is in finding the best bang for the buck, and that isn't always an easy task. (I know this all too well.)
Well, since we are talking about it, where is a good guideline or starting point for cartridges let's say $500.00 or a little one way or the other ?
I think there are some amazing cartridges at much lower prices than that. I believe diminishing returns rapidly take over above $500/600 or so.
I have a lot of cartridges. I made a conscious decision to buy a bunch of good lower cost models (over time of course) rather than one "super expensive" one. I enjoy switching them in and out and listening for differences with my favorite recordings. I have three systems set up too.
I think four of the cartridges I have can give many of the mega buck cartridges a run for their money. They are the Denon DL-160 ($180), Ortofon Samba ($225), Denon DL103R ($379) and Dynavector ($380). Note that they are from companies that build their own and do not seem to overprice their offerings, imo.
Even the A-T440MLa, A-TOC9ML/II and Denon DL-110 are tough to beat and sound great too.
This is a sensitive issue, but some of the very high end cartridges would be beat out in blind listening, I'm sure.
With anything you can buy, the real values are in the middle price ranges. Same with watches, cars, wine whatever!
Madame Lalou Bize-Leroy makes some damned fine wine.
And I could take a short drive into the Alsace to Trimbach and find you a wine for around $50 that is one of the top five whites in all of France, easily competing with burgundies (Chardonnays) that cost anywhere from 10 to 30 times the price. And many, many wines for around $15 that will put the more famous names to shame.
I'm not really a good guy to ask because I tend to use cartridges from back when. I did have a Grado Platinum reference that sounded pretty good, but I traded it to another guy around here. It was a $300 cartridge, and I actually liked it better than the $500 Sonata. I have an NOS cartridge that I like better than both, so I suppose your mileage will vary.If I had the extra money, I would add a ZYX Universe and a Blue Angel Mantis to the stable. I would appreciate it, if you would PayPal $10,000 to my account. ;)
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