Anyone contrast Transfiguration with Allaerts?

Dear Ed: Taking in count what you posted I think that the Ruby 2 can be a good choice for you other than the Allaerts MC2 Finish Gold.
I'm talking here only on the overall cartridge performance not of what are the needs on arm/phono stage, specially the Allaerts.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Ed: I an't speak on that Allaert or the Ebony L because I don't have any experiences with.

The Ruby 2 has very good tonal balance with no " biasing " to one or the other frequency extremes, it is extended but not bright, easy listening type cartridge, not lean not over-warmer and could be matched by your Moerch tonearm specially if you own the wands with the " signature " headshell ".

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Ebush: It is always " nice " to see that you are looking for a quality improvement in your sound system reproduction.

There is something that worry me about when you say that the Glider is neutral,good balance, grainless and the like. As Larry point out the Glider ( in my own experience ) is a " little " different for what you experienced but like always it is system dependent.

If all that is true then think first on this: a top cartridge like the Titan i, Orpheus, XV-1, the Finish Gold ( Allaerts ) and many others are very demanding on tonearm and phono stage quality/facilities to show its best performance and from what you posted and with all respect IMHO maybe you don't have ( yet ) the audio items to match that kind of cartridge level ( any of those top named cartridges and other ones are several steps atop your Glider ).

Of course that you can go on but I think that if I invest " big " money on a new cartridge then I want to achieve the best from that cartridge.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Ebush: As I say system dependent. In my experience the near field sit helps a little but not to much about ( the Glider performance ), other side I prefer the quality cartridge performance with out step-up transformers.

Of course that what you like are the whole " colorations " of your system in the same way that I like mine.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.