Ortofon Super OM10 or Sumiko Pearl cartridge?

A-goner Ferrari had really nice things to say about the Pearl over in the Reviews section.

Another possibility: Why not go with the new Ortofon 2M series? The 2M Red is at your budget max and represents the next generation in Ortofon's development.

And then there's the Audio Technica AT440MLa, commonly available below $100 in the last half of 2007, but is hard to find at that price now. If you could, though, it'd be worth it for features you never see at this price--nude square shank Microline stylus and single-crystal OCC internal wiring. In fact, that would easily make it worth the $150 available through Amazon.

I will say this: I limited myself to sub $100 cartridges for the first 6 months after getting back into vinyl (Shure M97xE and Ortofon OM10). Then I got the $180 Denon DL-160. My feeling now is that life is too short to not have at least a Denon DL-110 or DL-160. Every once in awhile (including yesterday) I'll remount one of the other cartridges for a sanity check (it's not a big deal--I have detachable universal headshells for each cart), and it's just no contest. The DL-160 is better in every possible way--tracking, frequency extension, linearity, dynamic resolution, smoothness, and transparency. You don't even really know what's going on in the bass with anything less.

Well, maybe the Pearl; I have no experience, but read Ferrari's review. There are also reviews over there of the Denon DL-110 and DL-160, Grado Black, Goldring Electra, and Shure M97xE.

Dear Marntz4me : IMHO the way to go is along the Sumiko Pearl ( that I own ), this cartridge is a way lot better that what its price " say " specially loaded at 100kOhms.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

I upgraded to the Grado Black/Green from the Ortofon Super OM10 and have been really happy with it - then again, I'm a complete sucker for the things the Grado does well. I like Sumiko's cartridges but the Oyster just didn't do "it" for me, whatever "it" is.

I've also been curious about the Ortofon 2M series, in fact I made a thread about them that hasn't gotten any replies yet.

...although given how glowing that Sumiko Pearl review is, I might have to give it another shot - especially since now that I think about it, I might be thinking of the Oyster.

03-15-08: Patrick_odonnell
...although given how glowing that Sumiko Pearl review is, I might have to give it another shot - especially since now that I think about it, I might be thinking of the Oyster.

If you read the whole Pearl thread, you'll see a comment that places the Oyster and Pearl in entirely different categories.

But if you read the DL-110 and DL-160 reviews, you'll see that these Denon HOMCs absolutely run away from the $100 pack. To me they're easily worth the higher cost, even to the point of going without records for another 2-4 wks to save up the additional money.