What Cart. for a Infinity Black widow

Bro57, the Black Widow tends towards brightness, so I would be leery of putting any type of MC on it, not because of lack of quality (I tried an MC on it and it worked OK, but did not sound terrific), but because it is bright. As well, I think the Grado is easily superior to the cheaper Denons, excepting, of course, the classic DL-103 which, being low-compliance (I believe), would be a poor match for your tonearm. Don't buy into the MC hype, get yourself a good high-compliance MM, you'll see, you'll be surprised at the amount fo detail and dynamics these can give when set up optimally.

Rwwear, if I remember, the Carnegie is a high-compliance cartridge, is it not? And as to the Shure being "mechanical" sounding, I have heard this said before, and this may be due to a mismatch with electronics and so forth. In my system and other systems, it was liquid and supremely musical, and I would just play record after record and forget all about audio crapola, and believe me, this was bliss. If the Carnegie was high-compliance, I would suggest it sounds as you say because of this. Perhaps this, after all, is why MMs are simply better than MCs at preserving/presenting that rhythmic interplay which is so important to the music (this has been noted by seevral audiophile acquaintances of mine, once we get over the flavour of the day stuff).

And Listener57, you're absolutely right, money is not the key to music: a little knowledge, and trusting your instincts ("Hey, I like this! as opposed to "Hey, this is really impressive") is the key. I find that truly musical "budget" pieces are far more numerous than musical "high-end" pieces. Musically flat but extremely detailed equipment prods the unhappy owners to buy ever-more expensive equipment in an attempt to justify the ridiculously high outlay for a lot of this stuff. The more information a piece retrieves, the more difficult it is to preserve the music, which ends up just getting dissected, and the timing evaporates. Without timing, stereo equipment is good for boat anchors. Find a used Grace or Mayware - both cheap - for your Grado, and you'll hear what I hear, an opening up of the Grados, greater slam, more information at the frequency extremes. On a Black Widow on an Ariston RD80 (not particularly notable, but very musical) the Grado Platinum is a bass monster. And don't forget, these cheap tonearms benefit just as much as Regas do by re-wiring. I've just bought an ASL Mini Phono stage for $250 with NOS tubes classics new, and I can't wait to hear the Grado through it! I'll be reporting on it in the ASL Mini Phono thread later.

I owned the black widow years ago. A wonderful match is the ortofon SM or MC 30 or some such designation. a low mass cartridge tailor made for an arm like the black window. Wonderful combination.

Have fun.

Steelhead, I believe it was an OM30, a highly-regarded low-mass MM, and good to finally ehar a report on it, as the OM20 from the overlooked Ortofon MM line has received some quite enthusiastic reviews in the last couple of years. To Bro57 and Listener57 (you members of the same club?) and Dopogue: I've just received my new ASL Mini Phono (I want to stay away from the high end and concentrate on music and already this thing is almost too detailed!) and everything is out of balance again, but in a quick A/B the Grado in an old Ariston RD80/Black Widow sounded better (same detail but smoother and better rhythm) than the same Grado in a re-wired RB300 on my best high-end 'table! The low-mass tonearm is that important! (Plus, and I'll keep this low as it is heresy, I'm beginning to think that the Linnies were right, with the caveat that the old Aristons and ARs are even better than the Linns at rhythm. Shhhhh.....It's not all about detail, which in the end simply interferes. Keep it under your hats.) Now I will make myself a tonearm board out of solid Purpleheart for the Ariston to increase that natural quality: I think the Arsiton/Black Widow is a keeper, and damned my high-end 'tables, at least for now. Now to the Purpleheart!

Dopogue: I have both a Stanton and the latest Shure V15. The Shure is slower, less revealing and lacks coherence during complex dynamic passages. It is a good "universal" cartridge in that it is competent and works reasonably well in most any arm that you throw it in, but it doesn't work optimally as compared to a more specialized cartridge in any of the given arms that you might use it in.

Having said that, the Shure is much more stable in terms of sonics from system to system. The Stanton is measurably more finicky in terms of cartridge loading and sonics WILL vary for this reason. Much of this has to do with capacitance, as quite a few TT's have interconnects that are too high in capacitance to obtain optimum results with the 881S. Couple this with the capacitive loading that is built into most phono stages and the Stanton suffers quite noticeably in anything but a system that is designed to let it sing.

On top of all of that, i'm basing my comments on the 881 using the "S" / Stereohedron stylus, not the current model that comes with an Elliptical stylus. That's why i mentioned picking up the NOS Stereohedron stylus from Kevin at KAB while he still has some in stock and keeping the Elliptical as a spare.

Steelhead & John: I agree that the Ortofon OM 20 & 30 would also be a good candidate for this arm. If i can remember correctly, Ortofon designed these cartridges while working with Dual. For those that aren't familiar with Dual TT's, they also used straight arms of low mass design. Some of the later Dual's even came stock with a special version of these Ortofon cartridges. The cartridge body & headshell were built as one integral unit, offering increased rigidity and no need to adjust the overhang. You simply installed the cartridge and began playing as the cartridge / headshell combo was already optimized for that specific arm. I seem to remember something about these cartridges being called "Concorde" or something like that, as they somewhat resembled the fancy French aeroplane of the same name. Sean
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Must...resist..temptation...to reply...cannot...Sean, while you are a fountain of information concerning MMs, and I really appreciate all your knowledge here and would like to hear more, as I am now convinced that MMs are simply better than MCs at the all-important timing issues (the heart of the music), what you apply to the Stantons - careful set-up and so on - applies equally well to the Shures. You say simply that the Shure V15 is universal and so on, but this simply isn't true: while it does mate well with todays' almost universal medium-mass tonearms (we - must - standardize - wash - out - all - colour), it absolutely shines on medium-mass unipivots! This was my first intimation of the Shure's Greatness, when in my ignorance one day I decided to match it up with a Mayware I had set up out of curiosity on an Audiomeca 'table. As the Grados open up on low-mass tonearms, so the Shures open up on medium-mass unipivots! But I also believe that Shures sound truly great on Regas as well, depending on the 'table.

Unfortunately, it's not just a case of getting a great 'table and then putting a great tonearm on it: everyone should get a Decca for the thrill as well as the education! While my Decca so far works best on a Mayware on an AR-XA I've modified, the same Mayware-Decca combination absolutely will not work on a high-mass idler-wheel I built (and there are no vibration problems, I traditionally use low-output MCs on this rig). Which means that the whole thing - weep for us audio hobbyists! - tonearm, cartridge and 'Table, works together as a system, so that the Decca in a unipivot prefers low-mass 'sprung 'tables, in which it outshines all, but otherwise...pffffttt. I would suggest that your experience of the Shure is partly due to your not taking due diligence in setting it/them up, and partly out of one of the aforementioned variables. Every cartridge has a secret combination, a website like this is an opportunity to find out what those combinations are. Thanks for all the info. By the way, the sirens have been calling me to an Empire P10 (or soemthing like that) selling for $140, would you know anything about it? Any info would be much appreciated.