Is a good Cermic Cartridge an Oxymoron?

Tea and sympathy for Ghostrider45 -- no good deed goes unpunished, does it? : (

I am sure that every single person who has played LPs has destroyed at least one stylus in this way :-( It was my luck to do it to a MC cartridge with non-replaceable stylus.

Ain't digital great!

Throughout the 1980s I used a Jeff Rowland strain gauge board and a Panasonic strain gauge cartridge. I think I paid about $300 for the board and about $35 for cartridges and maybe $20 for stylii. I still have some of each but I sold off my Rowland board a few years ago. It was quite inexpensive relative to the performance level.

Hey Ghostrider,
Thanks for the correction on those MA carts and sorry to hear about the trashing of your stylus.
I just purchased a low end MA from the classifieds here and mounted it to test with the Metzner - No Hum whatsoever! Very good frequency range - so-so tracking - but very, very microphonic - lots of surface noise.
Was your top end MA also microphonic? Does the fixed nature of the magnets in these carts somehow make them immune to the high amount of EMF transmitted by single-pole induction motor driven tables?
Thanks, Mario

No, my MA-780 had no noise or microphonic issues. It also tracked quite well. Perhaps it was because of its line contact stylus. The cartridge had great high end response but was just a bit bass shy. I'll miss it....