Budget Cartridge: Grado Green vs Ortofon 2M Red

Are you refering to the Goldring Elan? I pulled the trigger on the Red 2M. I'm a sucker for the new packaging of old technology. I've heard it sounds "divine" though. We'll see.

I'm personally not sold on uber expensive cartridges just yet, considering my recent happening with a Goldring Eroica, but thats another topic.

I have a Techniques SL10 tangential table that was dormant for about 20 years. With all the talk about analog, I put a Grado Green into it a reved it up. It sounds terrible! I was hoping that it was the cartridge, but wondering if it might be the turntable.

The Grado shouldn't sound that bad? I can't say that's the best table but, it could be a variety of things: phono pre, cartridge set-up, table set-up, power...
My Sota is 20 years old and sounds amazing even with my Shure m91, Ortofons sounded good, a Goldring 1012 was really nice, now that I'm on a Clearaudio Beta S, I'm done.
Again, using everything through a PS Audio UPS 200 makes a difference. My Cambridge 640 phono pre made a nice difference too over my Classe pre with phono or my Sherbourne with phono. And then again, cables make a difference.

However, I'll stress that table, arm and cartridge set-up make the main difference. A 10,000 cartridge will sound like garbage if set-up poorly.

For my $100 I'd go with the 2M Red. I have a Shure M97xE and I find it dull. In my limited experience the Ortofons have a precise yet musical way of going about their business.

For $250 the Audio Technica AT150MLX stands alone. To me, it's worth selling $150 worth of stuff lying around the house to obtain it over *any* $100 cartridge.

But if it's gotta be $100, 2M Red. Grado Green is a refinement over three decades; 2m Red is from a clean sheet of paper by one of the most brilliant cart designers formerly in the biz, Per Winfield.

Yeah, I wish I'd been able to spring for something like the AT150, I just wanted to keep it at the 100 mark out respect for the fact that I'm working through a warranty issue with a Goldring Eroica and I thats going to be my primary machine when it gets back. I'm just having a little fun, but obviously I want to get a good product.