Want to upgrade my cartridge from 2m blue to black

these vintage MM cartridges just do many things right.  very enjoyable to listen to.

Agreed on vintage mm. They do a lot of things right for not a lot of money.
Careful shopping can net you 4 or 5 totally different"flavour" vintage mm carts for same cost as one new MC cart.

Of course research is needed to see if they suit your tone arm in way of compliance and if replacement stylus are available at all.

I am gettting as much satisfaction from older MM designs than I did with my MC cartridges if not more.  It seems as though the 1200g stock arm is made for these old cartridges with high compliance.  Just amazing.

For those interested I can perhaps chip in with some recent experience

Last weekend I sat in on an Ortofon demo. 2M red, blue, black, Quintet black, Cadenza bronze & black.

All were mounted in detachable headshells. The system, top end Project TT with Musical Fidelity mid-range solid state and Klipsch speakers, with the exception of the addition of Ortofon's entry step up for the MC's the system remained unchanged. 

2M red offered decent engaging sound. Someone earlier in thread mentioned they found using a cheap cart on better table offered better sound than a better cart on a more basic TT. Based on this demo I can understand that comment.

Quiet a change moving on to the blue, far more detailed by comparison, the red while engaging didn't allow the same level tone and insight into the way an instrument was being played. It sounding sweeter with incidental instruments more obvious in the mix. Vocals however were noticeably more sibilant, for me it tipped the balance toward overly so though others didn't feel it was a problem. The black alleviated the sibilant issues while extending the sense of real instruments being played. Soundstage was set between the speakers and there was nice tone and flow to the music, very acceptable sound but for me missing the beauty of what's available in a really good analogue set up.

The Ortofon rep clearly stated that the red/blue stylus were interchangeable as are bronze/black, while it may fit adding a bronze/black stylus to a red/blue body does not get you a bronze/black sound, just something different.

Moving on to MC the really significant change was the way in which the soundstage opened out, there were significantly more ambient queues that defined instruments in space across a wider, deeper stage, while retaining all the tone, body and flow of the MM range. Much more to my taste though I can understand some may favour the different flavour of the 2M black presentation

@uberwalts 

Jico used to make stylus for the 981 but a Pickering XSV3000 should work just as well. Which are a little easier to find and cheaper! 

Jico never made SAS stylus for Stanton/Pickering, all they did is cheap  generic Elliptical replacement which is a total degradation compared to any Stereohedron profile. It's better to send worn stylus to Expert Stylus in UK for retip with Paratrace profile. Expert Stylus Co LTD. specialized in Stanton/Pickering repair for ages.  Our @nandric is their best customer for retipping his huge collection of MC with Paratrace profile from Expert Stylus :)  

Pickering XSV-3000 has D3000 Stereohedron stylus, but this stylus is equal to the (Stanton 881s) D81s stylus. 

Stanton 881 with D81s is not as good as the Stanton 981 with D91s!
 
Stanton 981 is much better cartridge than 881 model and i think sealed D91s stylus cost at least $450 minimum. So ebay price is pretty close.  

Also Pickering XSV-7500 is much better than XSV-3000

P.S. I have factory sealed Pickering D3000 Stereohedron stylus if anyone interested.

My latest find is low impedance/low output mega rare Pickering XLZ-4500s, this MM cartridge has an output as low as MC and must be connected to MC phono input. XLZ series is completely different from XSV series.