Best Cartridges on a Budget

You have to spend thousands on a quality turntable cartridge, right? WRONG! Elusive Disc’s Jason Marcum shares four exceptional cartridges costing less than $500 each. Each one delivers incredible sound quality, warmth, and richness of tone. Jason discusses the main factors to consider when choosing a new cartridge: the type of cartridge, design, stylus shape, stylus replaceability/upgrades & sound quality. Whatever you are looking for in your next cartridge, we have the perfect one to meet your needs!
Check out our Analog Basics series for more helpful information: tinyurl.com/yvhn47by
Time Stamps:
0:00 Intro/Factors to Consider
1:37 Audio Technica VM95E
2:42 Ortofon 2M Red
3:38 Sumiko Olympia
4:25 Hana EH
5:33 Conclusion/Advice
Links to products in this video:
Audio Technica AT-VM95E Dual Moving Magnet Cartridge: tinyurl.com/k2nxbt37
Ortofon 2M Red MM Cartridge 5.5mV: tinyurl.com/4h22jxhz
Sumiko Olympia: tinyurl.com/24adetb3
Hana EH Elliptical MC Cartridge 2.0mV: tinyurl.com/mryzc3hr
Shop all Audio Technica cartridges: tinyurl.com/bdfpwxmh
Shop all Audio Technica replacement styli: tinyurl.com/2jxdk5tp
Shop all Ortofon cartridges & replacement styli: tinyurl.com/2p84pwym
Shop all Sumiko cartridges & replacement styli: tinyurl.com/mrmzes6e
Shop all Hana cartridges: tinyurl.com/apxt6vxu
Shop all turntable cartridges under $500: tinyurl.com/ynd6d5tk
Shop all turntable cartridges: tinyurl.com/4fcd3yaf

[@kiaora12]

The Denon 301mkII is a fantastic low output moving coil under $500. I’ve tried many cartridges over the past 20 years and this one really has no shortcomings. The transients and dynamics are what set a LOMC apart from MM and this one delivers. But if you want a budget MM, the Sumiko Pearl($120)is an outstanding performer and works great for a wide variety of music and is forgiving of your older, less than minty Lps than others in this price range.

[@mtacoustic1]

Had a Boston Acoustics MC-200 ($200) back in the 80's. A great moving-coil cartridge! Unfortunately, the stylus was accidentally broken off, and I have not found a replacement; the MC-200 no longer made. Loved that cartridge!

[@josephsaroce4991]

Nice reviews..thanks.

[@Extremesam43]

Always something to learn in this hobby

[@MarkSWilliams27]

Folks should also consider the Nagaoka MM-110.

[@bearded_wolverine3503]

I've seriously been looking at that. My set up is a sl1200mk2 into Klipsch R51pm (powered speaksers) and a 120sw by klipsch and my car is a AT vm95ml, but ive read a lot of positive reviews on the nagaoka MP-110

[@adotopp1865]

Thanks. This is a good video 😊

[@GeirRssaak]

Very informative! I have an old at 11e.can i use the new audi technica styluses without changing cartridge?

[@roward48]

My vote is for two vintage carts. ADC xlmII and Stanton 881s. Runner up would be the Grado Gold.

[@careystuart]

Shure V15 type 3 W/ a Jico SAS stylus, still outstanding if you have one...I like those Harbeth speakers.

[@F1fletch]

Does Hana offer the shibata upgrade directly or is this something you offer?

[@MichaelM-to4sg]

In my experience over 45 years owning several dozen cartridges, I believe cartridges are the lone piece of audio gear where price largely defines quality. Many extraordinarily phenomenal speakers, amps and front end units can be had for prices much less than the absurdly priced alternatives, I’ve found that’s just not the case w/cartridges. For reference my current collection consists of DS Audio Grand Master, Grado Epoch3 and Koetsu Urushi Mono. Previous collections were various Lyra, VdH, Koetsu, orthogonal, Grado and a DS Audio DS-W1. Not that there are not some very fine lower priced cartridges available, just that each step up in price seems to get a quieter, better detailed, better separation and bigger soundstage.

[@ElusivediscInc]

thanks for the reply! Those are some really good cartridges and we agree in general on how performance improves as you step up.

[@grants7390]

@@ElusivediscInc appreciate the "in general" as even with cartridges it's very easy have a nasty slip in some snake oil.

[@steveallen489]

Nagoaka MP 110 is best I've found in the $150.00 range.

[@joerosen5464]

Mostly but far from entirely true. Even the need for the extra preamp stage required for the 20db of extra gain (if not more in some cases) automatically knocks the performance of an MC a notch below an equally good Magnetic Cartridge. To the point where I would argue that when you're speaking about $500+ upgrades to your cartridge you might do better putting that money into a better phono preamp instead... And cartridges that mistrack, AT ALL, EVER, automatically fall off my list of "acceptable" cartridges. Funny how you'd be hard-pressed to find any Magnetic Cartridge over $100 (Decca cartridges excepted) that don't track like champs, yet there are plenty of multi-thousand dollar MC's that can't track certain records without doing permanent damage to them...

[@adotopp1865]

They will mis-track if they are not set up correctly

[@mrfroopy]

I use a Grado Red and Don't know why that isn't here too. I have that and to me it sounds better than the Ortofon, but is a bit less neutral.

[@MuzikJunky]

I’ll take the AT-VM95ML, thank you! Peace.

[@ericschulze5641]

What about the low mass ortofon

[@louiesipes2257]

You think the 2M red sounds warm? Hmmm. Ok

[@TheAgeOfAnalog]

2M Red is crap. Ride hits sound like trash can lids.

[@user-zp1yo6so1e]

@@TheAgeOfAnalog You are correct...... the 2M Red is crap.

[@Victor43377]

I’ve never listened to one but it seems to be the general consensus across the internet that it plays warm and it’s shit

[@keithkneeland6849]

I had a red years ago, it was not at all warm sounding to my ears. he pronounced “massive amounts of IGD” wrong. He mispronounced it as ‘warm’.

[@cassettedecksresurrection7204]

The worst cartridge ever....and definitely not warm

[@JanPippel]

Missing one of the best and maybe the most iconic cartridge in the world of turntables since decades… How about the Denon DL 103 (or the newer DL 103 R)?

[@joerosen5464]

How about: NOT??? Even the VM-95E will smoke that turd, IMHO! Somebody's been reading far too much Art Dudley & Herb Reichert (& maybe even that weenie Paul Seydor...). And hasn't been listening to all the other great stuff out there that the Hind-End Fraudio types never mention. Leave it to Herb Reichert to miss the VM-95ML, which is THE very best sounding (& tracking...) member of the VM-95 family. The Denon 103 is a 1962 piece of plastic crap that can't track worth a hill of beans; not even with an elliptical stylus fitted to it. And it makes everything sound like it's made of cardboard, so bad is its reproduction of timbres. 🪗"Oh! Stack another quarter on my headshell, it's Sunday & I really feel alive!"🎺🪇 Like the Ortofon SPU (with emphasis on the "PU"), this ancient refugee from the galloping senility ward of No-Fidelity needs to be put down & out of its & our collective misery. ASAP!🤢

[@aressiu4799]

The Audio Technica VM95E is made in China. (watch carefully at 2:07) Not Japan. I bought one but it is very forgiving and musical.

[@ElusivediscInc]

Thanks for the reply! The cartridge we reviewed and the ones we have in inventory indicate on the back “Made in Japan” which is why we make this claim. We didn't notice the text on the cartridge itself, great catch! Regardless we really like this one for the value it provides.

[@gpoler]

@@ElusivediscIncAT cartriges vm95 EN, SL, and SH are made in Japan, the other C and E are china. but all the styli are interchengable

[@72vespa]

for what it's worth, the VM95C I purchased says "Made in Japan", both on the packaging & cartridge.@@gpoler

[@joerosen5464]

Still, that's not what you said in the video, Mark...

[@ericodijk]

It's true that the VM95c and VM95e are made in China. Yet they are made to the same high accuracy standards as the higher ones from the series: VM95ml, VM95sh and very likely the VM95en (though I am not totally sure about that). I own carts from the higher VM500 series, by the way. Since that series is also not expensive, I wondered why those were not tested. I tried the VM520eb (the high version of the VM95e) and now the VM540ML which is very good. But... if you want to go for a budget surprise, check out the AT3600L, the one that comes as a standard with a lot of turntables. There's a lot of different styli for that, both for 3,5 grams tracking force and 2 grmas, which turn this cart into an AT91 which is a fun thing to have.

[@EddieJazzFan]

I like the Audio Technica for classical and Ortofon for jazz/rock. I plan to try Sumiko in the future. I have a Denon 103 moving coil, which is cheaper than the Hana, but sounds to harsh on my system.

[@RUfromthe40s]

don´t expect improvement AT if good is better and after trying several brands and models at a friend´s hi-fi store the sumiko from one reference up were good ,the ortofon that in the 70´s and 80´s(the looking like the OM) meaned quality assured with any cartridge they sold now the 2M series only the bronze and black also the black LVT that i bought one for one of my 15 turntables most of them from the 70´s or the best ever made, there´s a simple trick to know if your cartridge is good ,you play a record and after you play a cd and it sounds like garbage no matter what cd player you have or DAC because the problem is the compact disc a format developed in the 70´s so we are 23 years after the year 2000 ,that i used to talk with my friends and say "in the year 2000 ,there will be no starvation,or sickness or wars all will be perfect" or too much expectations for the future ,there are songs from known artists that say the same like if it was so far that with the promisses of improving people´s lifes one would think all problems would vanish but how wrong we were,even a stylus has 5x or more less listening hours than the ones sold from the same brands in early 70´sor even in the 90´s ,if not filled with money try a old technics direct drive quartz if possible the ones i have since 1972 still work and sound perfect today,the cd is a retrocess and the ones sold in the 80´s are nothing like this ,they found a new material cheaper to make them afordable for everyone ,in early 90´s most of the music stores closed and when opening only were selling cds and there was a fair of selling records still new from every label even independent ones that today don´t mean the same,and i filled twice a big mercedes i still own from the 70´s twice the third time only filled the trunk because i had to bring my friends back home,so i bought thousands of new records from my favorite or even one song i liked artist for what today is 10 cents,. a record sealed and new but not dirty like new ones ,i have 15.000 LP´s and bought 5.000 or a litle more in that weekend,even the ones i already had it was like grab all and put it on the car,where?everywhere. the same faidr last year i went there and records with 100€ price i couldn´t believe it and most of my records are rock ,every type 70´s till today including heavy bands and they sound several times better than any cd but there are some cds depending on the music type that are good sounding ,but in reality if i put the record or vinyl playing it sounds even better and my cd player cost me next to nothing because of my friend owning since the 60´s a hi-fi store and this cd player is from CEC a well known brand in the 70´s and are still sold today for 36.000€ and it´s belt driven at the time there was a sony ES even more expensive this in 93 to 95 ,when i saw the price i almost had to take my anxiety pills

[@joerosen5464]

My man Eddie has experienced THE TRUTH about the Denon 103! That is, that IT SUCKS! Like the Ortofon SPU, the Denon is a VERY ancient cartridge design ("New for '62!"🤣). Even by the late 60's it was surpassed by even the middle range of Shure cartridges. Leave it to certain Audio/Mystic/Screwups to rave about OLD GARBAGE; because these LOSERS think they're soooooo kühl when they're TALKING OUT OF THEIR ASSES.🙄😴 As someone who has been setting up turntables, both for myself as well as other people (& have been doing it professionally for my local "High-End" audio store for the last 4 years), there's hardly a cartridge I haven't yet seen or heard. And having heard various versions & deviations (like Zu Fraudio's...🤪) of the CHEAP PLASTIC CRAP 103, it NEVER fails to sound various flavours of "Harsh".😐😑 It's also grainy sounding & has absolutely zero timbral colour; everything it plays sounds like the instruments are made of cardboard! AND it damages records with its excessive VTF & lousy tracking ability, even at those high VTF's!🤮🙄🤧 Waddya want for state-of-the-art 1962? Back then, elliptical stylii were a novelty, almost nobody offered anything other than conical stylii (Art Dudley's favourite!🤪🤓🤪 🙉🙉🙉). Tracking forces under 3g were almost unheard of back then, as was any semblance of tracking abilities! This is why Shure pretty much stole the entire cartridge market & then pretty much owned it until the demise of vinyl back in the late 80's. Even a $25 Shure P-Mount M92E from 2015 tracks WAY the hell better, at a fraction of the VTF (1.25g vs. 10 tons!🫤). Not to mention that to my ears, & to the ears of the 95%+ of people who've heard the Denon 103, an M92E SOUNDS BETTER too!🤯 Even this $25 MM cartridge(unfortunately no longer made) lacks "grain" & tracks the loudest passages with ease, utterly devoid of any semblance of IGD when set to its vinyl-saving 1.25g recommended VTF, which is less than HALF the VTF the Denon requires to perform at its utterly pathetic best! Not to mention having VASTLY better portrayal of timbres & more than a semblance of timbral colour; something that can equally be said of an Ortofon OM5e & Audio-Technica AT-95E or VM-95E.😳 I suppose if you like playing records that already have extensive groove damage due to mistracking (which is the case with Fraudio reviewers like Art Dudley, Herb Reichert, & all the compleat idiots that John Atkinson has mindlessly stacked onto his once pretty good magazine), damage due to mistracking that you yourself likely have inflicted on once pristine pressings with your previous choices of other lousy & often defective Japanese Moving Coil "fartidges", then to your defective ears the Denon doesn't sound harsh to you... And the likes of cartridges such as the Shure SC-35 (a Herb Reichert favourite😳🤪🙉🙉🙉) MM DJ cartridge, or truly horrid sounding & performing MC's (at least to the rest of us, who listen first instead of joining cults for the gullible & brainwashed) like the Ortofon SPU, the sub-$2000 EMT's, anything Miyabe, AND the Denon 103; then your choice of cartridge, & the rest of your stereo equipment for that matter, is governed by not so much by what you hear (because IMHO, you're either not, or tragically, can't hear) as what you think is Retro-cool & will impress your non-Audiophile friends by showing off your Hipster prowess. And I think (I know!) that 99% of those non-Audiophiles are absolutely flummoxed that someone could actually think that the resulting 💩noise your old-junk system produces in any way sounds "good" (let's not use the word "great", that's waaaaay too far a stretch here🙄). But because we're all supposed to be polite in the presence of otherwise civilised company, those same non-Audiophiles won't tell that Hipster what they REALLY think. Instead, they will struggle to express some form of praise to flatter or at least appease the Hipster Dingbat. Given that non-Audiophiles aren't conversant in Audio/Mystic/Screwup-speak ("touch", "flow", "colour", "continuousness", "splunge", etc.etc. ad nauseum), their inability to find the right words to flatter said Hipster with, whilst simultaneously hiding their shock at just how incredibly crappy this clearly very passionate raving Audiophoole's assemblage of weird, ridiculously overpriced, esoteric jumble of sometimes unidentifiable bits & pieces of FRAUDIO 💩 actually sound like to them; their shock-induced inability to find the right words to hide their horror & simultaneously struggle to express some sort of polite praise (pity, actually...🤨) will be brushed off as ecstatic praise expressed by someone from outside of the hobby of 🗣️🗣️"serious audio" who was absolutely amazed by the "I just saw Gob!" sound of that system but just lacks the audiophoole vocabulary to fooly express how incredibly impressed they were...🤮🤧 No doubt they actually think that the Hipster has joined a cult of some kind, & is halfway along to being certified for commitment to an Insane Asylum of some sort. Which, AFAIC, is the correct assumption.🤗 To conclude, let me just say this: If you have been persuaded that the Denon 103 is a good/great cartridge without having actually listened to it, just because you read the mindless self-aggrandizing 💩-drivel of some Hind-End Fraudio 🗣️🗣️"Reviewer"🤥 who you presume MUST be an expert authority on High Fidelity because...well, if they weren't, wouldn't that magazine or website KNOW who's a 🗣️🗣️"real" "expert" & who isn't? And therefore NOT print mindless Hipster ramblings from some tin-eared know-(less than!)nothing? ANSWER: NO. It's mostly a club of friends & fellow travelers. They mostly hire from within; IOW, it ain't WHAT they "know" as much as it is WHOM they know!🙄 The truth doesn't matter to them. Not in the least. No, it's all about telling a good story! That's why all their 🗣️🗣️"reviews" start off with some windy, unrelated tangent about what haircut they had in the 1980's, or driving a diesel unheated Mercedes across Siberia with a pile of Japanese single-ended triode amplifiers in the trunk, or their teenage visits to a Hi-fi store on a family trip to Switzerland...It either just doesn't occur to them to that we don't want to know the story of their lives; we want to know what the damned component supposedly under review sounds like!!!🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥😡🤬🙄🤮 I think for most of them, all the "filler" they write is just there because they have nothing to say about the sound of the components they review. And that they have nothing to say because they lack both any writing skills or hearing acuity & hope that you'll doze off first before the suspense of the non-event conclusion of the "review" is even reached & therefore exposes that the Audio/Mystic/Screwup Emperor has no sonic clothes...🤥 Not to mention being paid by the word, as well.🤑🤣🤣🤣👹 At best, take their rave reviews as mere recommendations; something that PERHAPS merits further investigation on your part. Unfortunately, in this day & age, that means rolling the dice & ordering a cartridge online with no audition & no return privileges (unless you never took it out of the packaging, & then sometimes STILL not). Bricks & mortar Audio stores are a thing of the past & few & far between. So the Audiophile who wants to actually audition a product prior to purchase is usually SOL. Elusive Disc unfortunately exemplifies the optimum business model for our times. A KZbin channel, a website, & a bit of phone & email support. And without the crazy overhead of insane rents charged by the most greedy people in the world, landlords; an Internet store can clobber a bricks & mortar store for the best prices. Anywhere, anytime! Never mind what retailer in the world would happily swap out something as tedious, delicate, fiddly, & expensive as a phono cartridge for a PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMER to evaluate by direct listening comparison??? It just doesn't happen! Even before the Internet Era, even before the word "Seedy" was on anyone lips or in their vocabulary, it almost never happened! So we as sincere audiophiles are led & misled by idle recommendations from questionable people that we will never physically meet someplace that we will never physically visit. Assuming that we even know their REAL name!🤥🤗 They have their own & often highly questionable motivations & judgement; ALL are suspect. AS THEY SHOULD BE. And this is how grainy, record-damaging cartridges, with the delicate timbre of a piece of cardboard glued to your woofers, a certified refugee from the audio galloping senility ward, gets as much good press as it does; despite deserving your FULL CONTEMPT for how AWFUL it sounds compared to even the cheapest magnetic (MM) cartridges that have something better than a conical stylii fitted to them!🤫

[@RUfromthe40s]

@@joerosen5464 seems you know how to be fooled and spend a fortune in a litle thing they call turntable with new cartridges sounding worse then early 60´s turntables, they evolved till 1979 all that came after were reduced quality turn ables but at least they sound good , your very funny not knowing nothing about turntables and paying a fortune for badly built and sounding very bad cartridges ,any turntable to meet 70´s standarts cost today aroun 14.000€ or more thousands if dollars ,people have experience for using it everyday since early 70´s and the cd wasn´t an upgrade just for pigs and those also used to say that cds they bought monthes earlier don´t play ,the problem with pigs not that you are one just an uninformed person about the best ever technology for home listening after the reels ,any low reference reel doesn´t record as bad as the best cassette deck in the world ,amplifiers are so weak and bad sounding compared to the ones released till 1979, you might have a bad sounding system and in your head it sounds good but it´s snake oil to fool people, denon in 1972 i didn´t even knew it existed only in late 80´s i discover this brand, there are many more brands with far better quality allthouggh i have it´s cassette decks from 89 the DR;-800a and the DRM-700a being only diferent in the type of heads they use but both very good, i had a 90´s very expensive denon turntable,that onlçy worked forn 6 years after i had to use the much better sounding 70´s turntables that i have around 12 but the best ones are the technics SL-1000mkII and the PLC-590 from pioneer 20 series, learn i would not be around for more than 10 years if lucky , regards

[@lualrosaal]

I also have Sumiko carts and they are very good. Still to my ears the Nagaoka is better and more refined

[@RUfromthe40s]

@@lualrosaal i totally agree with you, i searched a lot for substitute my 70´s cartridges that the stylus wasn´t available and went for sumiko ,grado,nagaoka ,AT and even a expensive Ortofon for my 90´s thorens, a cadenza black S ,sounds funny to say it

[@lualrosaal]

Have you tried the Nagaoka M200 or even the M150? To my ears they sound clearer, deeper and crisper than the Ortofon Red. And I do believe the M200 has a boron shank for less than $500.

[@jayem1826]

I have the 110 and plan on getting the 200 or 500 stylus only and fit it with the 110 body. On my next trip to Big Camera in Yokohama

[@joerosen5464]

It does not. You have to pay about $1000 to get a boron stylus Nagaoka, & you still only get an elliptical stylus, too! Yep, best buy a Nagaoka in Japan. Because here in North America, & I suspect all of Europe as well, Nagaoka are very poor value. Add mediocre QC & performance, & you really have to be a fanboy to even want to bother. This from a former MP10, 11, 50, & 50S owner. And there's NOTHING, at any price point, that Nagaoka offers now that's even remotely as good as the 50S was. Back when I bought those in the 1980's, Nagaoka was fairly priced & had a couple of models that offered good value. Not anymore. In my country, Canada, they picked up a Distributor who couldn't make any headway with them because of their absurd prices. The Distributor has since gone under, & nobody here has picked the line back up. And why should they? The line did nothing; only the Antistatic "No.102" LP inner sleeves were of any popularity. Then Mobile Fidelity came along with their better sleeves at half the price, & nobody wants the Nagaoka sleeves either. There are better Audio-Technica, Grado, & Ortofons available at every Nagaoka price point. The world moves on; open your horizons...

[@RUfromthe40s]

the 207c from 76 technics cartridge and stylus spherical, eliptycal stylus (made by nagaoka)is today above the MP-300 and the MP-500 sounds good but not sounding dynamic and i prefer elyptical stylus to another type , the last more expensive turntable released by technics said to be the same as the SL-1000mkII ,uses a nagaoka cartridge and stylus made especially for this turntable that costs above 5.000€ because they were in business together for decades and stupid people the first thing they do is trade it for a ortofon black that compared ,it sounds very bad, but people think they know better than the ones who built the best turntables for the last 53 years, but nagaoka is one of the best brands today in price/quality combination the mp-110 is far better than any 2M red or blue from Ortofon ,who in the past was a brand that meaned quality, today is just crap or thousands of €´s to get a good one but not all have money to spend that amount in a turntable needle,i have 15.000 records colection started by my grandfather in late 50´s and no record as noises or anything they were just stored in shelfs, avoiding humidity or dust the worst enemy of vinyl records

[@joerosen5464]

My apologies, I was wrong about the MP-200. It DOES have a boron cantilever. Unfortunately, it also has a fat elliptical stylus (0.4 x 0.7mil) that's no better than what's on an Ortofon 2M Blue. The boron cantilever does give noticeably better performance than an aluminium one...but when the MP-200 is three times the price, GO FISH! Worse, for half the price of 2M Blue, the Audio-Technica VM-95EN also offers a nude elliptical stylus that's only 0.3 x 0.7 mil. So that's a finer elliptical profile on a cartridge ONE FIFTH the price of the MP-200!!!🤪🤑😳 Only the MP-500 has a decent stylus on it (Line Contact), but an Audio-Technica VM-95ML at ONE QUARTER the price of the MP-500 has a better stylus (Micro-Line, the state of the art in stylus profiles). No, it doesn't have a boron cantilever at that price, but it has an anodised aluminium one that's much better than the untreated ones found on the MP-150 & lower models, not to mention all the Ortofon 2M's except the top LVB 250 (which still only comes with a Shibata stylus, which isn't quite as good as a Line-Contact type, but is one small step below its performance). So despite the slightly inferior cantilever, the fact that the VM-95ML has a better stylus profile on it than the MP-500 does pretty much evens out the quality differences between them... Nagaoka's also have inferior generator technology & materials than Ortofon & Audio-Technica do; they have a wimpier output of only about 60-80% of the 2M's & A-T's, & I remember them being super sensitive to cable capacitance. More than about 200pf wipes out their high frequencies; most MM phono preamps have 220pf capacitors on their input jacks, & the average tonearm cable is about 50pf/ft., & you usually get a minimum of 3ft. of cable... you can see that the math doesn't favour the Nagaokas here! That's the sound I remember from the Nagaoka's I owned or heard in the 1980's (MP-10,11,20,50,& 50S): Dull, lifelessly over-polite, with inferior build quality to Ortofon or Audio-Technica. My first MP-50S, their flagship at the time, was defective & had to be immediately exchanged for another! Whereas I've only experienced the odd open coil on the very bottom of the range Ortofons (an Omega & a 2M Red), but have NEVER seen a defective Audio-Technica! Of course, Grado's quality is by far the worst of all the cartridge manufacturers. But even their bottom of the range Prestige Black3 is a far better sounding cartridge than any Nagaoka below the MP-200; with a particularly dynamic sound, ALIVE, with full punchy bass, juicy mids, & a far more solid soundstage & PRESENCE. I doubt that even the refinement of the MP-500 would impress most listeners over the excitement of the cheapest Grado!🤔 For all those reasons, I put Nagaoka at the bottom of my list of preferred cartridge manufacturers.

[@joerosen5464]

@@RUfromthe40s Elliptical stylii are superior only to the cheapest type: conical/spherical. They extract less detail & track worse than hyper-elliptical (Ortofon 2M Bronze), Shibata (Ortofon 2M Black & LVB 250, Audio-Technica VM-95SH, VM-740SH), line contact (Nagaoka MP-500, Audio-Technica VM760SLC), or especially, Micro-Line (Audio-Technica VM-95ML, 540ML, OC-9xML, & AT33PTG/II). Also, elliptical stylii have the shortest rated lifespan for wear: just 300hrs. Compare that with 500hrs. for Line-Contact...AND conical, too! And the Micro-Line is rated for 1000hrs.!!! The only reason to prefer an elliptical stylus over the more advanced shapes is that because of their inferior performance, they're less critical of optimal tonearm setup; and that means you need to find someone better to do that for you. The Nagaoka cartridge you're referring to is the FUGLY looking JT-1210, which happens to HAVE THE EXACT SAME SPECIFICATIONS AS AN MP-200. Do people REALLY think a cartridge manufacturer is going to tool up a completely new model to help another company sell 1000 of them?🤔🙄 Technics used to make their own cartridges, & they were some of the very best in world, even by today's standards. Cartridges like the EPC-205III, which I wish I owned. And the EPC-310MC, which I do!🤗 But because that was a long time ago, with production stopping by the mid-80's & all the machinery & tooling long since melted for scrap, Technics isn't going to start from scratch all over again. THAT'S why there's a Nagaoka cartridge in the new SL-1210GAE or GR! As for the claim that Nagaoka has some sort of "long running association" with Technics, I read that BIG LIE as well. Nagaoka is a completely separate company, & Matsushita, Technics parent company, is at least 1000x larger & really doesn't need a pipsqueak company like Nagaoka for anything; except maybe for this quick little favour where they can all wave the Japanese flag with their "all-Japanese!"🤓 turntable "package"! This is truly a cartridge only worthy of another anodyne 🧩 of 💩 shiny Technics direct-drive turntable like the SL-1210. Technics only makes the best turntables in the world if you're a DJ, not an Audiophile!🙉 Don't look under the hood of a Technics turntable; they're made entirely of cheap recycled scrap plastic💩💩💩 (that Technics👹 tries to fool you into thinking is something amazing by disingenuously marketing👺 it as "Bulk Molding Compound"💩🤣🤣🤣). I repair turntables as my job, I have been inside these cynical & incredibly CHEAP turntables to fix them, with their little plastic automatic mechanism gears that they jam right underneath the tonearm where no other reputable manufacturer puts them, stuffing them into tight places to deliberately make them unworthy of the labour cost to disassemble & reassemble them. Rattly little rods & linkages made from white metal & the kind of steel that 1968 Toyota Corolla's were made from, & cheap & crappy little PCB's crammed with the most miserable quality of electronic components for their "QUARTZ LOCK!" 🤣💩🤣💩🤣💩motor speed circuitry that's so bad you can see the speed wandering 🤪🫨🤪 by just staring at the strobe light on the side of the platter for 10 or more seconds!🙄 Also, Technics lies through their teeth about their specs. I remember in the 70's when they would ficticiously claim that their SL-1600-3300 series had -77db rumble 🤥🤥🤥(DIN-B, weighted). But when actually measured by the Hi-Fi magazines, turned out to be barely better than -30db, unweighted!💩👹🤗🤧🤫 A bottom of the line 1968 Dual Idler-Drive turntable has less rumble than an SL-1200...& sounds 1000x better, too! Not the least because it's made from METAL and REAL WOOD; not Pot metal, ground-up scrap bamboo, & recycled plastic waste (with a thick piece of cardboard, drilled with lots of little holes through it, as the bottom cover!🤮)! Denon were another bunch of Japanese liars, with Kenwood & Pioneer hardly any more honest either.🤨 There's a reason why REAL audiophiles stayed way the hell away from cheap Japanese CRAP direct-drive turntables in the 1970's & 80's. The British, German, & American turntables sounded alot better, were far more durable & reliable, were actually alot quieter IN REAL LIFE as opposed to the fiction printed on Japanese spec sheets, & far more of them have survived & are still working well instead of ending up in landfills (where Technics goes to recycle the plastic from their old ones!🤣🤣🤣) Dude! You've been had! The only thing good about Technics is their shiny "space age" styling & made-up specifications!🧐

[@DarrellS54]

I could never understand some of the Jargon that is used when a phono cartridge is "sounding musical". Is it still musical if you`re listening to a comedy album or such?

[@salviaspuzzle]

Calling it musical is just as silly as calling a beer "hoppy." It's barely a step up from the word "good."

[@D800Lover]

_"Hana has not been around for a long time."_*Correction:* Hana is not made by a new company, they are made and owned by Ecel Sound and has a long track record using the "Goldring" name. They have also made cartridges for other companies. They have been around for 50 years or so. My best inexpensive cartridge is the Grado Opus 3 *LOW OUTPUT* version - it does have fixed stylus. BUT, you need a MC type phono stage that does *NOT* default to 100 Ohm. It works well into 47K, but I like to lower it to 3.3K. It is a ridiculously good cartridge for the money!

[@RUfromthe40s]

it´s not a cheap one ,and grado as lots of good cartridges but today costs 5.000€ before only what today is 100€ and it was expensive because it´s made of a type of wood only found in tralala land and in extinction

[@flapjackspeeder]

Buy a VM95ML and turn down the treble if it sounds too bright for ya. That’s really all you need.

[@matereo]

Both the Sumiko and hana are Excel designs.. did you know that?

[@joerosen5464]

Obviously Mark didn't. But I knew about Hana, & only (but highly) suspected that Excel was behind the Sumiko mediocrity as well. Excel never had a reputation good enough to put their own name on their dull designs. Their cheap ES-70 series of MM cartridges from the 1970's probably helped give their brand the kiss of death. Quality was never their problem. Performance was. And I'm quite certain still is.

[@guillermomartin8248]

What about the Audio Technica AT33EV MC

[@joerosen5464]

Why bother with that version when the vastly superior AT33PTG/II is staring right back at you instead?😉 Even the OC-9xML is a far better bet!

[@clginbox]

Keep in mind that moving coil cartridges require a different phono preamp.

[@Prasen1729]

I always Ortofon is a hyped and not top notch. It is like Windows to me in computer world. It is richest in terms of market share and revenue but is it the best machine ? :-)I I know I am perhaps wrong.

[@tobinclark1373]

“Musicality”. What does that mean?

[@w1nchester32]

it means does the music suddenly make you want to dance sing or clap you hands, as opposed to just sitting there admiring the tonality or the soundstage !

[@MarkSWilliams27]

Sorry - typographical error. Nagaoka MP-110

[@sayers1984]

Goldring e3, end of discussion.

[@joerosen5464]

Hardly.🙄 Goldring underperforms & is quite overpriced. For much the same money or quite a bit less: Ortofon 2M LVB 250, Black, or Bronze; Audio-Technica VM-95ML, SH, or 540ML. Beginning of discussion. And better listening!🤗

[@jro7075]

this is a good vid first time watching you had 3 great carts I personally do not like moving coil for practical reasons yes the sound will probably be better SLIGHTLY but when you compare a moving mag to moving coil just so that you can hear an extra tinkly note on a moving coil than a reg mag the price is not worth it I don't see why you have to send out cart to replace stylus let alone how expensive they are ,moving coil obviously the coil moves generating the sound of music and moving mag is magnet moving making sound so why is that different when it comes to replacing stylus ,they are too !!!! expensive to be worth it and if you have that kind of money to waste for a cart then most likely your the audiophile I used to be .

[@MichaelM-to4sg]

Joe Grado invented the modern MC cartridge but his company only sells moving iron as he feels it’s a superior design. I would tend to agree based on my Epoch3 cartridge. I do own a total of 3 cartridges at present, have had a dozen over last decade; currently a MC, the Grado and an DS Audio optical.

[@ElusivediscInc]

thanks for the reply! We do really like both types of cartridges and we are glad to offer a lot of options for potential customers.

[@markcarrington8565]

The coils have to be connected to the output pins on the cartridge. Not a problem in a MM cartridge as they’re fixed inside the body. If you had to connect the wires of a MC cart, it would involve having some kind of connection mechanism between the removable stylus and the cart body. Given the tiny voltages and fragility of the whole thing, it’s clearly not in the makers’ interests. There is a big difference between good MC carts and good MM carts, however, there is no point in going to MC unless the turntable, arm and phono stage are up to the task. MM cartridges are much more forgiving due to their greater output and standardised interface with the phono amp. MC carts are far more demanding. I recently went MC for the first time and every time I have upgraded the other components, the cartridge showed me just how good my system now is. In other words, I have only just started to hear how good this MC is. None of this matters if you’re enjoying your music on the MM cartridge of your choice.

[@joerosen5464]

​@@markcarrington8565All you really needed was a Magnetic Cartridge that came fitted with a better stylus & perhaps cantilever as well. The generator technology doesn't mean 💩, MC "superiority" as a type is just PURE HYPE. But price does matter, & I suspect that MC's are rather fiddlier to manufacture, so they'll always be more expensive for that reason alone. They're not better, but they're almost always alot "brighter". And since virtually every record ever made has noticeably rolled-off highs, & tone controls are VERBOTEN! in Hind-End Fraudioland, MC's poorly loaded (as they usually are) give exaggerated treble response to compensate. Record companies hate when people complain that their NEEDLE couldn't stay in the groove, & would then complain that the $10 LP was defective, not the $5 needle with 5000 hours on it in their $50 record FLAYER. So they ALWAYS tell the LP Mastering Engineers to lop off the highs, roll off the lows, & compress the lot to within 15db of dynamic range (Classical maybe 30db...). All that, & the LP lover is just a warp, click, & pop away from Anal-Log ecstasy. So MC's restore the parts of the treble that merely got rolled off, the lopped off bits are gone & forgotten regardless...🫡 So if ridiculously bright cartridges are your preference, & MC's are more expensive to make because they're so fiddly to, then logic & Absolute Sound ragazine dictate that MC cartridges will always be more expensive than Magnetic ones, despite the latter being superior in price, tracing abilities, linearity of frequency response, & freedom from background hisssssssssss. Now, if a cartridge manufacturer had the balls to ignore his marketing department & risk the ensuing financial suicide, they COULD easily make a better Magnetic Cartridge than any MC one. They simply would have to be willing to do as many of the following 3 things as possible: 1) Use the best stylus profiles. In order: Micro-Line/Replicant 100, Line-Contact/Gyger, or at least a Shibata. 2) Use the best cantilever material. In order: Hollow Sapphire (no longer made), Diamond, Ruby/Sapphire (You like it Red, or Clear?😉🤫), or at least Boron. 3) Use the strongest magnets. In order: Neodymium & Samarium Cobalt. Alnico V is for weenies. Ortofon, with Michael Fremer's extraordinarily marketing help, will gladly sell you an MC with a diamond cantilever & a Replicant/Micro-Line stylus for as little as $7000USD. Audio-Technica will do it for $12,000, & so will Ortofon for $10,000 AND $12,000... I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Ortofon 2M Platinum MM with the same stylus & cantilever as their Verismo, MC95, or Anna Diamond; able to track at the same 1.5g as the 2M Black as opposed to the ridiculous 2.4-2.6g their MC flagships seem to require (& still not have quite the tracing ability as the sub-$1000 2M Black, & probably not the sub-$500 Bronze, either🤫🤣🤣🤣). I think $2500 would be fair for that, don't you? Because Ortofon clearly won't! Likewise the Audio-Technica VM-95DCML, with the same cantilever as their $12,000 ART-2022 MC but with the better Micro-Line stylus instead of the inferior Line-Contact thing they fitted (likely from the unwanted & overpriced VM-760SLC). I'd think Audio-Technica could do this & make a tidy profit at $2000USD. Because Audio-Technica clearly doesn't want to! I rest my case...😈

[@adotopp1865]

An early patent, perhaps the first, for a moving-coil dynamic microphone is credited to German engineer and industrialist Ernst Werner von Siemens in 1877.

[@Extremesam43]

Elliptical is oval shaped. Conical is round.

[@ElusivediscInc]

Thank you so much for pointing this out and we apologize for our oversight on this matter. I believe we just misspoke but it's been almost a year since we filmed and my memory isn't what it used to be. -Thanks James Bantz

[@benyHiFi]

Hi Jason, Love your reviews! I want to upgrade my Mofi table with MasterTracker and get an mc for up to 2k. Any recommendations?

[@ElusivediscInc]

Sorry for the delay. We just got back from Axpona. If you want to give me a call at our 800 number and ask for me I would be happy to give you some ideas.

[@NackDSP]

Zero measurements. How about measuring distortion. Something useful. Reading the catalog page is not useful. Buy a test disk like the one Ortofon makes, record the 1 kHz tone with your computer using free software like Audacity. Plot the Spectrum. The ratio of the 1 kHz peak to the 2 kHz distortion is going to be between 0.5% and 3% for different cartridges. Measure them and report it. That would actually be valuable. You will quickly find that the distortion is directly proportional to the stylus edge radius. So buy a .2 Mil vivid line from Audio Technica and you can't beat it.

[@davidthom7127]

This is my first time encountering your Channel. When you say the notoriously meh 2M Red is very detailed, I know not to respect your channel.

[@ElusivediscInc]

In clarification we were saying relative to its retail value it has good detail. Thank you for the feedback. Thank you -Jason

[@sc0or]

That's always not good to pretend to give a global advice having only 4 cartridges on a table. Don't you realize that? As for VM95 - that's an ultimate cartridge for beginners. There is no problem at all to understand what a vinyl sound is, if your new turntable has it preinstalled. I wouldn't waste money on any other +$100 or +$200, or even +$300 cartridge unless it is preinstalled in a case it's not VM95. From my personal experience a next reasonable price to stop is an area around $1000. Because $500 price range offers only a limited improvement, sacrifying something else. And you'll hear that in a sound anyway, all the time remembering the price. PS By the way, Ortopon makes only one good cartridge: $4k Xpression. ALL others sound like a digital processor is applied.

[@tonyjedioftheforest1364]

You are very opinionated, you are the one pretending to give global advice. Ortofon makes many great cartridges.

[@joerosen5464]

I'm opinionated as all get-out & I still agree with Tony! I've got 50 years of experience with turntables, to the point where I set them up for my local High-End Audio retailer. I actually inspect every cartridge with a microscope (Stereo, OF COURSE🤗), have more than one expensive alignment protractor (if it ain't Bauerwald, it sounds like ass), & quite the test LP collection, & an even greater number of stylus pressure guages (both analog & digital). I've got at least 100 cartridges in my personal collection, & almost as many turntables. Belt-Drive, Direct-Drive, Idler-Drive, even tried electromagnetic induction drive; you name it, if I haven't owned it, I heard it. Sorry you misunderstood the purpose of the video. I certainly didn't interpret this video as Elusive Disc's last word on what they think are the four best cartridges in the world, & neither should you have! This was simply an exposition of 4 different models from 4 different manufacturers that Elusive Disc happens to sell & believe represent particularly good VALUE from these 4 different cartridge companies. It's one thing not to agree with their choices. I don't entirely agree either, but I don't entirely disagree either. At the very least, these 4 choices are "up there" on any experienced person's list! You criticize the video for "pretending" to give global advice. You make it sound like Elusive Disc just picked 4 ran-dumb cartridges & liking them all, think that they're automatically the best in the world??? Yet you are guilty of doing much the same! I've heard my share of $10,000 cartridges. Only a few weeks ago I was auditioning the like of the flagship Kuzma CAR-60 with its jewel (ruby?) cantilever, & various Lyra cartridges like the Atlas, Atlas SL, Aetna, & Aetna SL. I liked them all, but pardon me for considering them to be incredibly poor value & quite unsuitable for my preferred tonearms (low mass) & preamps (MM only, State-of-the-art, Tubed obviously). I don't like nor do I believe in transformers, although they're better now than any time in the distant analog past. MC cartridges are uniformly overly & often ridiculously treble exaggerated, even when loaded down properly (which is often impossible to do because there aren't enough options on any preamp made to do it!). Their tracking abilities are anywhere from suspect to wanting; I have yet to hear a single one that can track as good as a $250 MM, never mind do it at 1.5-2.0g instead of 2.5-3.0g! The Lyra's come close, & the Clearaudio Goldfinger can do it at 2.8g in the $300,000 Statement turntable. But I can get the same level of tracking or better from a 40 year old Dual 505 that I paid $50 for, fitted with a Shure M97xE or M95 body fitted with an aftermarket JICO SAS stylus. And that combo also tracks epic warps without the slightest woofer movement, unlike the $300,000 turntable (not to mention the $150,000 SAT XD with its ridiculous SAT tonearms, with a Lyra Aetna SL sounding HORRIBLE into $500,000+ worth of Dan D'Agostino Relentless amplification & top-of-the-line Acora solid-granite loudspeakers!). OF COURSE, the $200 new/$50 used Dual 505 didn't sound as good as the Clearaudio Statement, as well it should; but that it SMOKED the $150,000 SAT should speak volumes about how important proper system setup experience is!!! The VM-95E IS the ultimate cartridge for beginners. And once you upgrade it to the ML stylus, or purchase a VM-95ML, you will be VERY hard-pressed to find a better cartridge for less than $5000!!! And an Ortofon 2M Red is rather grainy sounding & a tad insecure during loud passages, but for under $1000 you could fit an LVB 250 stylus to it & you'd be hard-pressed to find a $3000 cartridge to better that! Of all my 100+ cartridges, only 2 of them are MC's. Whatever benefit there supposedly is to moving 4 wires around & having all the coil mass sitting on the arse end of a cantilever, all of degrading transient response & tracking ability, versus wagging a couple of slivers of permeable iron or tiny magnets in free space, I have yet to discover them. Execution of the design is more important than what the design actually is. MC's are usually hand-made, & my microscopes & test records often reveal how inferior their build quality is compared to inexpensive machine-assembled MM's! My idea of state of the art DOES NOT include: - Iffy tracing abilities - Ridiculous VTF's - Having to listen to obnoxious background hisssssssssss & hummmmm - Throwing away cartridges because the stylus is worn - Using a cartridge that has been PARTIALLY rebuilt (because unless it was a trade-in swap, that's the "replacement stylus" job you got back from House of Shakifingers-San) My preferred cartridges include the VM-95ML. I own THREE of them! AND a VM-95E for shits & giggles (& a VM-95C. For 💩). I have a slight preference over them for my Shure M95 & M97's, if only because I have fitted JICO SAS/B stylii to them. They now sound on par with the $17,000USD Clearaudio Goldfinger, & the replacement stylus cost approximately 1/70th the price!!! I think I have the same values, if not problems, as most people do who are heavily invested in vinyl (or even just hope to be). And that is that I have alot of vinyl to play (5000 discs...), & keeping it in good condition so that I can play a favourite LP more than once without destroying the groove anywhere on them is more important to me than any allusions or illusions of sound quality the cartridge possesses. Besides, no matter how accurate the tone & beautiful the timbre, mistracking in ANY quantity, even a whiff of it, makes that cartridge a sonic stinker to me & there's nothing else about it that redeems it to my ears. To my ears, setup is EVERYTHING. If you don't get that right, then your $10,000 MC is a piece of crap next to my Audio-Technica AT-95E, my Shure M44-7, & my three Grado Blacks (every one of them cost me under $100 each). Having gotten that VITAL bit out of the way, which included a full visual checkout under a microscope & ride on the highest bands of my test LP's where the damned thing had better sailed through with the cleanliness of a CD Player, your phono preamp makes ALL the difference in what you will hear! Assuming that the rest of your system doesn't suck, even a modest system under $5000 deserves a valve preamp. And they're not especially cheap, & will distort a modest budget, but find the right one (maybe a Tavish Adagio, or a budget ANK/Canadian Audionote job) & suddenly a seemingly modest MM sounds like a kilobuck MC...or better! Another thing that never seems to be mentioned by the showoffs & shills raving about their $10,000 cartridges: THE STYLUS WEARS OUT! A line contact stylii will show audible wear symptoms after as little as 300 hours. A Micro-Line I'm not sure; I'm over 300 hours on my first one & I don't hear anything suspect yet; Micro-Line stylii are rated by Audio-Technica at an incredible 1000 hours! It might even be true! Even assuming that I get 500 hours from the Line-Contact stylii on my $10,000 cartridge, that still works out to a running cost of about $20hr.! That's far more than what I pay to keep my preamps & power amps in the tubes!! Stylii aren't a one time investment. So I'm content knowing that my $200-400 cartridge choices not only cost me as little as 10¢ per side, but that I can play my records FOREVER with them! LET'S GET REAL HERE!!!

[@RUfromthe40s]

i have 12 good turntables and the ones i had to change the cartridge i found expensive ones and not sounding better. The old ones that are already with worn out stylus but still usable and sound many more times better than new ones i bought till 2.000€,the price of a diesel mercedes that lasts forever

[@tobinclark1373]

@@joerosen5464is there a type/brand stylus force gauge you would recommend.? Thirty year old Rega Planar 2 with cartridge yet to be identified/purchased.

[@RoccoXYZ1]

What no Grados? Give me a break