Want to upgrade my cartridge from 2m blue to black

Big_Greg, of course you are correct, and are speaking from first hand experience. Some have not been in the hobby long enough to understand that someone’s first hand experience may be contradictory to another’s experience. We can all just report what we hear, but to assume that translates to another system and another environment is sheer vanity.

@bsmg

I will stick with what the Ortofon engineers have published

This is for marketing purpose only, read what Peter replied to you, i believe he’s experienced with both carts and styli if you will click on the link in his post (you will see).

All cartridge generators of 2M are identical 99%, you see what’s the difference if you have comparison chart yourself, but why you keep telling us they are different? If you’re afraid to swap the styli it’s your own problem.

@big_gre

I own the same turntable the OP has and have put a really nice cartridge on it (along with other upgrades - an acrylic platter and Project Speed Box)- the Nagaoka MP500, Nagaoka’s $700 top of the line MM cart. I also owned a Music Hall MMF 5.1 and even with an entry level cartridge ($49 Audio-Technica AT95) it sounded better than the 2.2.

If you like a $49 Audio-Technica AT95 cartridge better than completely different $700 Nagaoka this is all about the cartridge you like, and your personal preferences in sound, not about turntable! Turntable does not have a sound as much as the cartridge in entry level Hi-Fi system. You can keep buyin’ turntables for your cartridges, but i will buy cartridges for turntables/tonearms, not vice versa.

But the question is not Me or YOU, the question is the cartridge for the OP, he did not asked what is a better turntable. I currently have 6 very expensive turntables, 6 toneamrs and 20 cartridges, so what?

When i swapped and aligned Stanton 881s mkII on friend’s Pro-Ject (nearly identicall to OP’s Music Hall turntable) it was a huge improvement over the 2M Red and my friend was happy to buy Stanton 881s MKII because this is exceptional MM cartridge, read here about this cartridge if you don’t know, it’s $350 cartridge which is much better than $700 Nagaoka and many other modern MM crap. Stanton was Doug Sax's monitoring cartridge for his famous disk mastering. The 2M Red will never be a better cartridge, no matter which turntable you will buy for it.

@viridian

Some have not been in the hobby long enough to understand that someone’s first hand experience may be contradictory to another’s experience.

This is all fine, but as i told you we could start from the room treatment and all our listening experience will change immediately. You can also mention an electricity as a pure energy and so on and on. But there is only one thing that can dramatically change the sound of the OP’s entry level Hi-Fi system - this is a cartridge. You can’t buy much better turntable with tonearm for $700 and even when you will buy it (second hand) the next thing you will come to is a cartridge. For $1500-2000 he could buy a better turntable and better cartridge, but for $700 he could buy ONLY better cartridge or for about $500 a better stylus for his existing cartridge.

And I will respectfully disagree...

Hi Peter! Thanks for reminding us about pulling the plugs off those pins on the 2M series. I totally ruined a Red when I tugged on a plug to remove it and the back of the cartridge pulled out with it, and then  (the horror!) I saw those super fine coil wires with it! Arrrrghhh!

Friends: BE VERY CAREFUL if you decide to de-install a 2M cartridge when pulling the plugs off the pins!!! Do not allow the back of the catridge to pull out as you do so!

Suffice it to say I decided not to replace the Red, but I still have my Black.

And thanks for setting the facts straight about swapability of the styli across the 2M line.

I would never buy a used cartridge unless I knew the person I was buying it from.