Good cartridge for unipivot arm?

Well, I ended up going with an NOS Ortofon VMS 30 MkII, per another user's suggestion.

Once I receive it, and get everything setup, I'll let you know how it sounds.

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

~mjm~

Pauly, I offered my comments only in general terms about uni's and low compliance cartridges that I have tried. The effective mass of the arm is going to work to your advantage with the stiffer cantilever. If you have the mass to load the cantilever abit then I would suspect all would be well. If there is not quite enough loading on the cantilever due to the mass of the arm and cartridge then the uni can tend to wobble.

I have run a 103r on a Graham 2.2. For the most part the 2.2 does great with this cart, but dynamic passages tend to loose focus a bit. This does not happen when I mount the 103r on my Basis Vector, a modified uni. Mind you these differences I hear are suttle and the 103r has a mass of around 8 grams.

Dan, I am a die-hard unipivot guy with some low compliance carts, so I am a bit concerned by your post. I have just bought a 12" Sheu Classic (14 gram unipivot) and am planning to run my DL103 on it. What type of problems are you referring to?

I have been a long time Morch UP4/Koetsu user, and ever since I started using the 14-gram arm the sound has been nothing short of jaw dropping. I would be very disappointed if the Denon 103/Sheu proves to be a lame duck.

Thanks
Paul

Pauly, I agree with you except for low compliance carts. They can give the unipivots problems. As usual it will depend on which arm and which cart.

The high compliance Cartridge Man Music Maker 3 would be ideal in that tonearm.

Thanks to all of you - keep the responses coming.

Cheers,
Mark

Most (All?) Grado carts have a compliances of 20 CU (i.e. high compliance), which would make them a very good match for the Mayware and Sonus tonearms.

I purchased the same tone arm and ask the same question a few months ago. The Grado wood carts were one that was recomended and I tried one. I am very happy with the sound of that cart on the Sonus tone arm.

The 'unipivot' has nothing to do with cart selection, rather you need to consider cart compliance and match that to the effective mass of your arm.

I have a Morch UP4 and have 3 different mass armwands – depending which cart I use, I need to select a different armwand i.e. my Koetsu cart (low compliance) needs the 14gram armwand, my Denon DL304 (high compliance) needs a 6 gram armwand.

The mayware is a (very) low mass arm and need a high compliance cart.

The shure M97** range would be an excellent match as they are very high compliance carts. I would call a couple of stores and ask them for what they have in high compliance carts in your price range ...

Regards
Paul

I ran a Grado Sonata on one to very good effect - the best I ever heard the Grado sound. Might be worth your shot.

sumiko celebration has been on my jmw9 for the last 6-7 months and only keeps getting better. also very easy to set up.

I put a ZYX cartridge on my VPI JMW arm and I love the sound I am getting. I had the Dynavector 20xl, but my ZYX Yatra is much much better in every way. I got mine from Mehran at Sorasound. He was a real pleasure to work with.

I love the dynavector line