Thread: recommendations for a new cartridge

it has now been a year since taking the analog plunge with a basic clearaudio analog kit. the performance of this modest rig is really remarkable and has exceed all expectations. over this time, i have really had a lot of fun and enjoyment with vinyl and am now definitely committed to having analog in my system going forward [thanks to mike for getting me interested and over the threshold with his why no turntable thread].

anyway, i am now looking to incrementally bump-up my performance and it seems that the low hanging fruit would be a cartridge upgrade. current cart is the CA entry-level concept v2 MM.

an obvious upgrade choice would be to simply go with a higher level CA cart -- something like the jubilee MM or the virtuoso v2 MM. so, it would be great to hear any thoughts/comments on either of these two carts and whether they might be overkill for the CA concept TT and satisfy tonearm -- recommendations for other carts would also be very welcome!!

as my pre-amp has a quite nice MM tubed phono stage, i would like to stay with a MM cart -- or maybe a high-output MC cart.

in terms of characteristics, i am always looking for more fullness, richness, texture, etc ...and as much detail as is compatible with that. oh, and my all tube amplifications can always use more low end.

thanks all !!!

Good luck, my last MM cartridge was a Grace F9e Super, one of my all time favorites. I'm not current on the modern MM's ......

The Vertere Sabre MM could be a great fit for you.

Sent from my LM-G850 using Tapatalk

to keep things simple and not overthink, decided to stay with clearaudio and went for the virtuoso v2 MM

should be a significant upgrade without being overkill for my current CA tt + arm

thanks all

I was going to suggest the Maestro. The Concept is an over achiever so you can use a higher level cart and still yield a benefit. You made a good choice though. I like the CA carts. I like the character of my Maestro over my prior Dynavector.

Just a side note I've seen Ortofon track and work very well with CA, as well as Benz. I wasn't present for the Benz install so not sure if just a straight forward thing, it sounded good though.