MM Cartridge recommendations for vintage TT

[joessportster]

I was FINALLY able to horse trade my way into my dream table. I have a Thorens 124 fully refurbished with a Graham 2.2 Tonearm on its way I will need a MM cartridge Any suggestions from the crowd ?  I am sticking with MM because the Thorens may not act well with Higher strength Magnets of LOMC etc..........  Also my Cary Pre has built in MM phono so I would not have to use a SUT or Head-Amp etc... Shorter path for hopefully lower noise floor.   I also want to try and stay away from the Grado. They are great sounding Cartridges but they are also prone to noise, I had one here on my other tables and it picked up everything made all kinds of noise.

 

Joe

[Tarheel]

Look at a few YouTube reviews and comparisons.  That's what I did a few weeks back when I needed 2 new cartridges.  I bought one MC Hana and an Ortofon MM.  There is no where around my neck of the woods to audition.

 

There is a gentleman that has done quite a few videos on YouTube and he usually leans strongly to Nagaoka cartridges.  He even rates the inexpensive MP110 Nagaoka better than my Hana which was double the price.  His name is Ian and he is a little hard to understand though there are captions.  His videos are very good.

[joessportster]

42 minutes ago, Tarheel said:

Look at a few YouTube reviews and comparisons.  That's what I did a few weeks back when I needed 2 new cartridges.  I bought one MC Hana and an Ortofon MM.  There is no where around my neck of the woods to audition.

 

There is a gentleman that has done quite a few videos on YouTube and he usually leans strongly to Nagaoka cartridges.  He even rates the inexpensive MP110 Nagaoka better than my Hana which was double the price.  His name is Ian and he is a little hard to understand though there are captions.  His videos are very good.

Im in the same neck of the woods..................Thanks for the Suggestion

[dirtmudd]

https://www.ttvjaudio.com/Grado-Platinum1-Phono-Cartridge-p/gra0000109.htm

[kevinmi]

Ortofon 2M Black, pricey but worth it.

[JohnJ]

@joessportster Seems to me that you have a very discerning ear. For around two bills think you could still get mid to upper range Audio-Technica fine-line carts. These did not color the sound at all for me ever in the use of them since the 80s. Ample response throughout with very good separation and sound stage, they did not obscure anything either.

 

https://sound-smith.com/articles/stylus-shape-information

 

^^ courtesy of @dirtmudd for me a couple years ago, great site for info & you probably already know about it!

[oldtimer]

I have been using a shibata stylus Audio-Technica on a vintage table for years and find it to be an excellent combination for a medium mass arm.

[Mighty Favog]

Love my Shure V15xMR.

[parlophone1]

Have not tried Nagaoka , so I can not tell.

I chose cart based on specifications of my tonearm. Was pretty limited because there is no way a I could adjust VTA on Philips 212 tonearm. What I had in my hands were the compliance and dimensions of the cart (here I just roughly followed the measurement of the cartridge on vertical axis, since there is no way to adjust the VTA on the TT).

Ortofon 2M carts did just fine in that regard. 

Playing with available parameters did the rest. Old Philips is playing ok.

Of course, having a good MM preamp is a must, but I do not have to tell you that.