Dan: Like Doug, I would also suggest putting your hard-earned money elsewhere than the cartridge.
At the recent High-End show in Munich, one of the very best-sounding analog systems was in the Taurus room, with Magnepan speakers, Rowland electronics, Raven One table, Schroeder Reference SQ arm, and Dorian cartridge. Of course, it was a major help that the cartridge and arm were set up by Frank Schroeder; who can extract better sound from an analog setup than practically anyone else I know.
In your case, I'd suggest first putting in more work on the turntable, tonearm and phono stage, and if someone local has a widespread reputation as being an outstanding analog setup technician, see if you can hire him to work over and refine your setup.
My experience is that in many cases, time and effort spent on setting up the analog system optimally (or hiring someone who can do a really good job) is worth fully as much as a component upgrade(s).
regards and hth, jonathan carr
At the recent High-End show in Munich, one of the very best-sounding analog systems was in the Taurus room, with Magnepan speakers, Rowland electronics, Raven One table, Schroeder Reference SQ arm, and Dorian cartridge. Of course, it was a major help that the cartridge and arm were set up by Frank Schroeder; who can extract better sound from an analog setup than practically anyone else I know.
In your case, I'd suggest first putting in more work on the turntable, tonearm and phono stage, and if someone local has a widespread reputation as being an outstanding analog setup technician, see if you can hire him to work over and refine your setup.
My experience is that in many cases, time and effort spent on setting up the analog system optimally (or hiring someone who can do a really good job) is worth fully as much as a component upgrade(s).
regards and hth, jonathan carr