Shelter 501 versus Soundsmith Zephr ?

my JMW is a 10.0 on an Aries 1 turntable. Just re-wired the tonearm with VPI's regular wire but my junction box got the nordhost valhally wire.

Now I am considering the SMMC1 which has a class A rating, and today just heard a Benz Glider S Low output which also sounded very good, but I have not yet heard any soundsmith cartridges although I started out way back with a Shure and have used Grado. I think moving iron sound must be somewhat different from low output moving coil sound, perhaps nuance versus image solidity and size??

It sounds so far from your responses like a soundsmith may be a better choice even though Shelter and Benz make great cartridges.

The effective mass of my JMW 10.0 according to Mike at VPI is 10.7 grams plus the weight of the screws so around 11 grams which is on the very low end of a medium mass tonearm.

I ordered an SMMC1 and it is due to arrive at my house in 2 days from today on May 6th so after I set it up and play it for a number of hours I will give you my initial impressions. I am looking forward to it. I will be curious how this design sounds different from an MC cartrdige like the 501. I grew up on a shure cartridge used on a Pioneer PL 12-D turntable when I was a teenager. There was plenty of bass in that set up. Basie :)

Robob,
I did not talk with soundsmith but instead went thru a dealer.

I now have 10 hours on the Soundsmith SMMCI as of may 12 2011 and the cartridge does not sound good so far. I will give it time to break in. very erratic, weird sound anomolies and generally lousey sound.

It turns out that the sound anomolies I had caused to happen by not knowing how to properly load my adjustable phono stage. Just checked with the maker of the preamp/phono stage and they told me how to properly load it at 47K and now the cartridge sounds great, is really starting to open up, large images, a lot of presence, and musically engaging. Definitely worth trying out a sound smith cartridge if you have not already done so ! This is an SMMC1 Sound Smith cartridge, just to clarify. I have heard that the Zephr is an even better match with the VPI tonearms. No complaints here.