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Best Cartridge for Less than $500

I have a SOTA Comet turntable with a Rega 300 tonearm and a Grado Gold cartridge. I would like to upgrade my cartridge and am looking for recommendations. My budget is $500. (The rest of my setup includes a Dynavector P75 phono-preamp and Aragon 8008BB power amp.)

Thanks.
adidio
chadnliz's avatar
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
I run a Audio Technica ATC OCC150 on my SOTA table with Rega 300 arm, and it sounds great BTW I like it better then my Dynavector 20L MC cart..........dont discount a few good MM carts over the sometimes blind loyalty to MC carts.
chadnliz's avatar
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
BTW my dad has the ACE and I think it is warm, mushy and pretty boring.......it sounds fine but never thrills, it is way too polite.
tvad
9,467 posts
 
02-06-08: Chadnliz
BTW my dad has the ACE and I think it is warm, mushy and pretty boring.......it sounds fine but never thrills, it is way too polite.
It's very interesting how these things sound so completely different in systems.

The sound of my Ace is the antithesis of what Chadnliz described.
genesis168's avatar
genesis168
373 posts
 
Audio Technica OC9 for $299

http://www.needledoctor.com/Audio-Technica-OC9-Cartridge

Great cartridge for the $$
carter9000
23 posts
 
By the way Adidio, there is a new ACE in town, which I have not heard. Benz just released new versions of their micro line - The "S" series. The prices went up...so the ACE is now $700. If you could find an old benz cartridge to trade in that would get the price closer to $500.

Here's the link to the news on their websight:

http://www.musicalsurroundings.com/benz_sclass.html
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