Best MM?

@dhcod

I’m surprised the "highish" compliance 2M Black is working so well in your "heavyish" tonearm. If my math is correct the RF is in the danger zone at 7Hz.

I’m also surprised at all the recs here touting high compliant carts that are much better suited to lighter arms than your SME.

If I were to disregard compliance matching and make such a rec, I’d say consider the Cartridge Man Music Maker. Best high output cartridge I’ve ever heard. Haven’t dabbled in the vintage cart world, but I have owned and heard many of the recs made here. The CMMM slays all of them in terms of saturated tonal colors, image density and plain ol’ musicality and "you are there" involvement.

Although a bit on the springy side, it is fantastic on my medium mass OL Encounter Mk3c and Rega RB300 (BritAudio re-wire) arms.

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orpheus105,655 posts

10-27-2018 1:20pm
There are some marvelous cartridges in the 1K price range;




https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/music-maker-ii-cartridge


http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/mmaker/mmaker.html

Hmmmm...interesting thing about that 6 Moons review. The author says this:

"Cartridge man Leonard Gregory doesn’t consider the Rega arms to be suitable for the Music Maker. In general, I suspect it’s happiest with a really good unipivot ....."

Hadcock is a unipivot. Both the latter version of the arm and MM cart are developed Len Gregory (the CartridgeMan) and they are commonly paired together and considered a very synergistic match.

The 6 Moons reviewer used the Hadcock in his almost over-the-top praise of the MM cart.

I own the Hadcock 242 arm and listened extensively with the MM cart. Quite contrary to the above and popular wisdom (that the springy MM cart does best with light unipivots) I MUCH prefer it on my Rega and OL arms. Maybe I’m just a fan of fixed bearing over unipivot? Or maybe I just didn’t nail the setup with the Hadcock?

I doubt it’s the latter since I futzed with it quite a bit , encouraged by all the positive reports on the pairing. But I could never achieve the sublime synergy I so often read about.

Like in many things audio......go figya!

lohanimal264 posts
Of the current carts everyone seems to be going on about the Ortofon, yet nobody mentions either the new Garrott carts nor the Cartridgeman Music Maker.

Not true. Back on Oct 27 I made two posts in this thread singing the praises of the Music Maker III. Excellent cartridge that deserves much more press / praise than it receives.