Grado cartridges still worth the money?

Just ordered a new Statement Series Reference 2!! Watch this space...

I liked the Grado.  I had a 15 year old version of the Statement Reference 2.  I enjoyed it for all those years.  When I decided it was time to retire my cartridge I immediately thought I would trade it back to Grado for the new Statement Reference 2.  Upon first listening it sounded fine.  However, the more records I played the more I started noticing distortions and over modulation that I had never noticed before with the older cartridge.  After discussing this problem with my dealer, Grado support and EAR support (my phono stage is an EAR 834P) we arrived at the conclusion that the newer Grado was not a good match with my phono preamp.  The new Grado, though still considered low output, has an output of 1mv whereas the older version had an output of .5.  Apparently this was an awkward output level for my EAR.  It was too high for the MC setting on my EAR and too low for the MM setting.  I don't blame the cartridge for this but the 1 mv output may be difficult to accommodate by phono stages that have a limited range of settings.  

Love my Sonata Ref2 in a older Denon
Speakers are Apogee Stage so i would say somewhat revealing in the midrange which I believe is the hyper strong point of the Grado.

Over the years Grado has had very musical to cost ratio cartridges
Maybe not glamourous or faddish but always solid musical sound

As noted may not work in every arm/table

@randyhat
You can lower the gain on the EAR if you replace the 12AX7 with a 5751 tube!

Yes I know.  This was suggested already (maybe you).  When I talked to EAR about that they doubted it would make enough difference to fix my issue.  Grado support suggested I get another phono stage.  That might have worked also.  But in the end I sent the cartridge back to Grado and ended up getting a Dynavector XX2 mk2 which EAR assured me would work well with the 834P...and it does....and it sounds even better than the Grado, albeit at a cost of an additional $500.