I've had my Technics with the stock Ortofon 2M Red for a while now having bought it second hand on here. As ever I'm never satisfied with what I've got so I'm wondering what my sensible options are for a cartridge upgrade.
At present I'm using the built-in phono stage as I assumed it wouldn't be much worse than my Graham Slee 1 Bridge stage. An easy option would be a 2M Blue stylus which is a straight swap but I'm underwhelmed by some of the reviews I've read. A Bronze seems a better bet but is ~£300 money well spent on this turntable or a waste? I've read some good things about AT cartridges like VM95ML and VM540ML but with their 100-200 pF loading recommendation I assume the built-in stage wouldn't be suitable. Likewise the Goldring 1042 has similar loading requirements. The 2M Red wants 150-300 pF which presumably the built-in stage caters for but whether it's 150 or 300 I cannot find. There's nothing in the Technics specs to indicate what load it actually presents.
So a change of cartridge manufacturer will probably mean a new phono stage - a Graham Slee 2 SE for example at £260 - to add to the cartridge cost. Even with the cheaper AT I mentioned we're now up to over £400 at new prices. Again, is the underlying TT/arm combo worth this investment? I have no idea so I'm hoping the wisdom of the 'Wam can help me out here!
Oh, and one more thing. Does anyone know if the Technics arm would be suitable for my old Shure M95HE with it's high compliance? It's got a barely run in Jico (non-SAS) replacement Hyper-Elliptical stylus so could be an improvement over the Red (or not!).
Cheers,
Mark.
At present I'm using the built-in phono stage as I assumed it wouldn't be much worse than my Graham Slee 1 Bridge stage. An easy option would be a 2M Blue stylus which is a straight swap but I'm underwhelmed by some of the reviews I've read. A Bronze seems a better bet but is ~£300 money well spent on this turntable or a waste? I've read some good things about AT cartridges like VM95ML and VM540ML but with their 100-200 pF loading recommendation I assume the built-in stage wouldn't be suitable. Likewise the Goldring 1042 has similar loading requirements. The 2M Red wants 150-300 pF which presumably the built-in stage caters for but whether it's 150 or 300 I cannot find. There's nothing in the Technics specs to indicate what load it actually presents.
So a change of cartridge manufacturer will probably mean a new phono stage - a Graham Slee 2 SE for example at £260 - to add to the cartridge cost. Even with the cheaper AT I mentioned we're now up to over £400 at new prices. Again, is the underlying TT/arm combo worth this investment? I have no idea so I'm hoping the wisdom of the 'Wam can help me out here!
Oh, and one more thing. Does anyone know if the Technics arm would be suitable for my old Shure M95HE with it's high compliance? It's got a barely run in Jico (non-SAS) replacement Hyper-Elliptical stylus so could be an improvement over the Red (or not!).
Cheers,
Mark.