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Best Budget Phono Cartridge?

After upgrading my system for CDs and SACDs recently, I pulled my old turntable out of storage to see how it would stack up. It sounded pretty sick, and my best guess is that an old (very old) Stanton 681EEE is the culprit. I don’t want to spend a lot of money on this experiment, but if I can find a decent cartridge in the $100-250 range it would be fun to see how my old vinyl compares. I’m looking at the following new or NOS cartridges:


Audio Technica AT7V MM or AT-F2 MC

Denon DL 103 MC or DL 110 MC;

Grado Prestige Gold1

Sumiko Pearl MM  

Ortofon 2M Blue MM  

Shure M97xE

 Would any of you like to weigh in on this list, or add a favorite of your own? I’ll be inputing to a Parasound New Classic 2100 preamp.


cheeg
viridian's avatar
viridian
4,184 posts
 
How can anyone make a recommendation without knowing the mass of the tonearm in question? Or was the model of turntable mentioned and I just missed it?
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cheeg OP
80 posts
 
@viridian 
 I don’t know the mass of the tonearm, but the turntable is an old Aiwa AP-B21 unit, with the following specs:

Platter: aluminium alloy die cast

Drive system: belt drive, auto return

Motor: 4-pole synchronous

Speeds: 33 and 45rpm

Wow and flutter: 0.05%

Rumble: 65dB

Tonearm: J-shaped static balance type

Effective length: 220mm

Cartridge weight range: 4 to 9g

Arm lifter: oil damped

Overhang: 15mm

Shell weight: 7g

Cartridge: VM dual magnet type

Dimensions: 440 x 135 x 355mm

Weight: 5.9kg
cheeg's avatar
cheeg OP
80 posts
 
@mesch and @reubent —  thanks for the Red/Blue suggestions – I like the idea of having two needles, as some of my vinyl is pretty ratty, and I would hate to ruin the better needle with it. 
cheeg's avatar
cheeg OP
80 posts
 
It looks like I should add the AT 440MLb to the list of possibilities... any comments?
viridian's avatar
viridian
4,184 posts
 

From the looks of it a medium to low mass arm. I would suggest a Nagaoka 110 as a fantastic cartridge. Another approach, since the 681 is such a fine performer, is to get a new stylus for it from JICO.

Would suggest that, since you are unable to adjust vertical tracking angle, elliptical or conical stylii will be better than line contact stylii which you may not be able to align correctly, which would put the 440 out, although AT makes nice cartridges and you might try one with an elliptical stylus, whatever the current version is that is comparable to the 120E.

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