Cartridge upgrades for Technics SL-1200MK2?

The Dynavector cartridges are a good match for this arm and the Sumiko aftermarket headshell is another good tweek for medium and low compliance cartridges. If you want something now that outperforms the Shure by a wide margin, the Audio Technicat AT440MLa is only $89.00. More detailed, but not as warm as the Shure. I have owned both.

...the Sumiko aftermarket headshell is another good tweek for medium and low compliance cartridges.

+1 on that recommendation!

I just upgraded my 1210 M5G rig from a Shure M97xE to a Denon DL-160 high output moving coil (HOMC) and added the Sumiko headshell.

I consider it a *great* match with this table and arm. The Sumiko adds just enough mass up front to offset the Denon's lighter weight and stiffer compliance. The Sumiko shell also is way more rigid, less resonant, and has much better cartridge leads than the stock Technics shell. Given that those cart leads sell for $20 separately the Sumiko shell is an excellent value.

I liked the sound of this setup better with the finger lift mounted to the top of the headshell instead of underneath.

As for the Denon, it gave me more of everything I was looking for--more transparency, clarity, frequency extension at both ends, bass definition and clarity, inner detail, smoothness, musical involvement, and soundstage width and depth. It dropped surface noise way down, too. Denon uses a tiny rectangular stylus that gets deep into the groove. I also listen to a lot of classical and jazz and this Denon has done well by me. Acoustic instruments sound excellent with it, it's smoother with violins than the Shure was, and the clarity improved significantly on large orchestral works.

If my experience is any indicator, then I suspect that any number of HOMCs of medium-low compliance with the Sumiko shell would be good, including the Sumiko Blue Point 2, BPS EVO III, Dynavector 10x5, Ortofon MC3 Turbo, Benz Micro MC20E2, etc.

I also recommend keeping the Shure around, mounted on its own headshell. It's handy to use with the damping brush in place when you have a badly warped record and don't want to risk damaging whatever nicer cartridge you migrate to.

Johnny, +1 on the Denon cartridges, really great sounding. It is marvelous that we have such nice choices to suit our turntables and tastes so long after the long playing record was pronounced dead!

Tvad, back again for some more, what happened did your account get reactivated?

I've heard good things about the Audio Technica AT150MLX for a MM cartridge. It's a noticible step up from the AT440 mentioned above, but also at 3x the money at about $260.00. Anyone else that can confirm that with this TT?
Good Listening!