Dear @justmetoo : Your inquire is interesting and my take is that both kind of cartridges can give us goose-bumps but in different way in different " gradation ".
MUSIC per sé has as main characteristic that moves human been feelings/emotions. If we listen MUSIC through a Walkman, home system or in a live event: things happens.
I owned and still own " hundreds " of MM/MI/LOMC cartridges and through my first hand experiences in my system and other friend's systems I learned something about what you posted and that makes the differences :
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it has more to do with timbre and TIMING... , than higher/better resolution. ""
Our MUSIC perception is a complex issue but my take is that what defines in first place what we are listening belongs mainly to the " "speed transient response "/attack of the media we are using/listening.
Transient response is responsable of the immediacy/impact feeling of the MUSIC and its harmonics.
The transient attacks in LOMC cartridges and CD are faster with a faster decay time than what we can perceive in almost all MM cartridges.
That transient attack we can easy aware through the bass range where exist a real difference between LOMC/CD and MM cartridges and only the very best MI/IM ones as the ADC 26/27 performs as the LOMC/CD media.
Transients are the ones that modulates all the frequency range affecting timbre/timing and the bass transients/attack are the ones that modulates the more or at least is more easy to be aware of it and to be aware if the system has good bass range response.
: I started in audio owning MM/MI cartridges coming from AT, B&O, Empire and AKG and were several years latter of those early years that an audio distributor introduced me to LOMC experience through the 103 followed by almost all Denon models to the 305 and from there and for many years I just listened in exclusive way LOMC cartridges from Dynavector, Ortofon, Fulton, FR, AT, Supex, Highphonic and the like.
So for years my ears were accustom to LOMC cartridges. Suddenly I remember that I had MM/MI cartridges that for all those years were seated in the closset and I mounted one of them and I like it what I was hearing ( move my emotions. ) and then I just followed with and buying " hundreds " of MM/MI cartridges and decided to share my experiences with through the MM thread that started several years ago.
In those years I was really exited about and living the same kind of experiences you are talking about and in those times I was thinking that MM/MI was a superior media ( more emotive. ) than LOMC cartridges with lower distortion levels but J.Carr posted in that thread that my statement about distortions was a misunderstood due that in reality is the other way around: MM has higher distortion levels no matters what.
Well even that I was in love with those higher distortions: moves me more than CD or LOMC cartridges.
Sudenly ( after some years. )Â I switch to LOMC again and found out that the sound puts me nearer to the live MUSIC. Gives me a different perspective.
During all those years I always ( as today but the pandemic. ) attended each week to listen live MUSIC and I had the opportunity to listened in several ocassions seated at true near field position.
My room/system is fine tunned in that way and my tests/evaluations are doing seated at near field.
Is clear for what I said at the begining that I love MUSIC and all those 3 medias moves me. I enjoy it.
Returning to the bass range the MM is a little in the " fat " side compared against LOMC or CD and with little higher overhang and not to fast transient attacks.
There are other issues about. Normally MM cartridge has flat frequency response 20hz-20khz ( and beyond it. ) when LOMC cartridges has a peak at high frequencies, so here exist another kind of frequency/harmonics modulators because we have to take in count that the inverse RIAA eq. comes with around -20db at high frequencies and beyond it: exist a lost in the high frequencies that some way or the other is " compensated " in the LOMC cartridges for the developed high frequency peaks.
Even Ortofon after several tests with different Ortofon cartridge models and from other manufacturers through its Golden Ear testers ( blind testers that's a group of different kind of MUSIC listeners experience. ) arrived to the conclusiĂłn that +2db-3db at over 20khz peak was the way to go because that Golden Ears pannel was what they liked the more.
You own very good audio system however MM characteristics is what goes with you. For what you posted I could assume that when you attend to a live event you seat not at near field position, I really don't know.
Here I think that the issue is not exactly about quality level of one media or the other but how each media handle ( transducer. ) the recording information in the LP grooves and how we perceive the reproduced signal.
Again, that transients attack is what makes the differences. Why LOMC/CD failed to moves you is another matters and unfortunatelly personal/subjective. Each of us are different.
I'm sorry not to help you in more specific way but the issue is not an easy one as we can think. To many parameters invloved there.Â
Anyway, only an opinion that still leaves open the OP.
Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.
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