The Mutech RM Kanda Hyabusa

Some poor bastard broke an Opus 1! 

Pindac, thank you very much. My feeling was that it was a lot of cartridge for the money. With a trial period what's to lose?

Absolutely Lewm perhaps the Channel D Lino C. I lust after the L20. Any cartridge less than 25 ohms can be use with a current mode phono stage. The lower the better. Fortunately this includes the Lyra cartridges, Air Tights, My Sonic Labs and many Ortofons.  Clearaudio cartridges need not apply. 

Did you check out the Haniwa turntable?  The tonearm is a non starter for me. I am of the school that says the platter and tone arm need to be rigidly connected on a stiff subassembly and the tonearm can only allow the cartridge two degrees of freedom. 

Channel D does not list an input impedance for the L20 only that as long as the cartridge has on impedance less than 25 ohms it will function well in current mode. The L20 also has  voltage mode and MM inputs. It is the quietest phono stage made and it also costs $43,000. The Lino is $2000 some odd dollars and does most of what the L20 does but it is not as quiet. It is however in there with the higher echelon.  

It certainly seems to be the way to go with very low impedance low output cartridges. I'm psyched to try it.  

It's full name is the Seta L20. But this is the one getting the very positive reviews http://www.channld.com/seta/linoC2.html  
If you go to the specification section in the manual they list the input impedance as less than one ohm. I was also mistaken. It will only work with cartridges <10 ohms not 25. The lower the cartridge impedance the higher the gain. Up to 85 dB if you use the highest gain setting. Inputs are only balanced so people might have to rewire their tonearms, no problem for you. There is also an RIAA bypass so you can use it with Channel D's software RIAA correction. I already have Pure Vinyl and I am dying to give it a try. 

ledoux1238, what do you think of the Lino C overall. Is there any improvement over your last setup? I think you are forgetting the Air Tight cartridges. They are very closely related to My Sonic Labs. Same designer. These are great sounding cartridges but they are stiff, require heavy arms and although not terrible are not the greatest trackers. I lean towards the Lyra Atlas Lambda SL. Just over 1 ohm impedance, medium compliance for use in a lighter arm with less inertia. The top Ortofon cartridges are around 5 ohms, are great trackers and work well in intermediate mass arms. The Gold Note Tuscany is 4 ohms but on the stiff side. 

ledoux1238, I hate to a PITA but that arm is a problem for most cartridges and this is why. You need a compliant cartridge for the vertical effective mass of the Terminator but a low compliance cartridge for the horizontal effective mass which is more than twice, perhaps three times larger. Nobody makes a cartridge like that. You run into problems which ever way you go. You want to spread the two resonances out a little to flatten and spread out the resonance but tonearms like this spread them out way too far. If you want to lower FM distortion and like tangential tracking look at the Reed 5T and the Schroder LT arms. They accomplish tangential tracking with similar vertical and horizontal EM, they do not skate and they have a low moment of inertia. Tangential trackers that use animated carriages to move the arm across the record could also be made to work. There is a German arm that does a good job of this. Can't remember the name but the carriage is belt driven and the arm is silly money.
The Lino C requires balanced lines so you need to twist the pairs as Rob suggests and take the third leg from the tonearm ground and solder XLR connectors on. That should do it. What you are doing has to get old fast. 
You could also set up a terminal strip and use regular shielded cables from there. 
I like neutral. If I want more bass or treble for a given recording I can add or subtract it from my preamp. Frankly, I am usually happy to listen to recordings the way they are. It is like coloring a black and white picture.
Every piece of art has a time and place which is an inseparable part of that work. The best systems can pull more reality out of the worst recordings. Some audiophiles listen to music they really don't care for because it sounds good. Music lovers will take it any way it comes. 
Anyway, look at the Schroder LT. It is a bargain for what it is.
 

All that is true lewm but you have to add in record irregularities which are at very low frequency. If you watch one of these arms carefully you can see the cantilever move sideways back and forth except with perhaps the stiffest cartridges. This produces FM distortion. I was hot to try the Clearaudio TT 5 at one time until I saw one and watched the cantilever drift back and forth. Some are going to blame this on the bearing but I also watched an Airline do exactly the same thing and these records where reasonably well centered. I am not the only one who thinks this is a problem. I do believe keeping the resonance frequency low produces more accurate bass but with horizontal trackers it is too low. This is what makes arms like the Reed 5T and the Schroder LT so exciting. They are also lighter arms which have mechanisms for adjusting effective mass. 
I never use the equation now RF = 159 divided by the square root of mass X compliance. The figures are always too far off the measured values. I just stick to lighter arms now and add mass when needed. Arms with less inertia produce less tracking distortion given equal resonance frequencies.

I set up my tonearms with both vertical and lateral resonance tracks. With the arm I have now the lateral resonance is 1-2 Hz lower than the vertical so I compromise between the two. 

I have always found tangential trackers intriguing but on this one I am inclined to agree with Michael Fremer. Excepting the Reed and Schroder you are better off with a short, light and stiff pivotal arm. 

I really like a dynamic performance so I plan on moving over to a current mode phono stage and low impedance cartridge. I really like the Lyra Atlas and the impedance is a lowish 4.2 ohms but the lower the better and The Mutech is one of three or four cartridges with very low impedance and there are not a lot of reviews on it yet.

The Terminator has the same problem that other arms of it's type
have. I have seen it do it. Consequently lewm I would never consider  one. As for friction, the Reed has the same friction as any other arm. The Schroder actually has less friction horizontally than any other arm assuming it has decent bearings. It is a brilliant design for this reason. Friction of the stylus in the groove pulls the arm forwards as the arm has no offset. Because the horizontal bearing is off on a lever arm this forward pull is magnified pulling the mechanism forward. The magnetic guide has no friction at all. The pull overcomes any friction further reducing any side forces on the stylus. So, which one would you get, the wooden arm version or the magnesium arm version sold by Xact Audio? 

The BMC Signature ULN is a beautiful little phono stage but in that price range I think I would go with the Lino C because it has an uncorrected output you can use with computer correction and a battery power supply.
I hope to get the Seta L20 because it has three inputs and the lowest signal to noise spec of any phono stage out there. It also has a MM input just in case I prefer one for Rock over a current mode MC. I love the Clearaudio Charisma. It is a blast playing rock and jazz.  Only problem is the price but in a year or so I should be able to manage it. I wull certainly let you know how the Schroder fares as I am pretty sure that will be my next arm. The only thing the Reed has over it is the ability to swap cartridges fast as it has removable arm wands like the Graham. 

Channel D has a program called Pure Vinyl. It is for use on Apple Computers only. It has built in RIAA correction. In order to use it you need a phono stage with a flat uncorrected output which all Channel D phono stages have. Then you digitize the output and send it to the computer. The computer will apply the correction then either play it back immediately or record the album to your hard drive getting the  metadata for the album from the internet putting it all together in the iTunes library.
Michael Fremer uses this to record vinyl and compare cartridges and turntables. Yes, it requires an AD then DA conversion but at 24/192 this is "invisible."  I have to digitize my phono stage anyway to send it to my preamp which is entirely digital up to the DACs. Is it worth it? Like always there are various opinions. The computer RIAA is more accurate and has less distortion. I have not tried it yet so I can not say. Fremer continues to use his CH phono stage for most of his listening instead of the computer.
But I love the Channel D phono stages. The L20 is a beast. When I get one I will certainly compare digital to analog RIAA correction