What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?


I believe that a cartridge and a speaker, by far, contribute the most to SQ.

The two transducers in a system.

I bit the bulllet and bought a Lyra Atlas SL for $13K for my Woodsong Garrard 301 with Triplanar SE arm. I use a full function Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp. My $60K front end. It is certainly, by far, the best I have owned. I read so many comments exclaiming that Lyra as among the best. I had to wait 6 months to get it. But the improvement over my excellent $3K Mayijima Shilabi was spectacular-putting it mildly.

I recently heard a demo of much more pricy system using a $25K cartridge. Seemed to be the most expensive cartridge made. Don’t recall the name.

For sure, the amount of detail was something I never heard. To hear a timpani sound like the real thing was incredible. And so much more! 
This got me thinking of what could be possible with a different kind of cartridge than a moving coil. That is, a moving iron.

I have heard so much about the late Decca London Reference. A MI and a very different take from a MC. Could it be better? The World’s Best? No longer made.

However Grado has been making MI cartridges for decades. Even though they hold the patent for the MC. Recently, Grado came out with their assault on “The World’s Best”. At least their best effort. At $12K the Epoch 3. I bought one and have been using it now for about two weeks replacing my Lyra. There is no question that the Atlas SL is a fabulous cartridge. But the Epoch is even better. Overall, it’s SQ is the closest to real I have heard. To begin, putting the stylus down on the run in grove there is dead silence. As well as the groves between cuts. This silence is indicative of the purity of the music content. Everything I have read about it is true. IME, the comment of one reviewer, “The World’s Best”, may be true.
 

 

mglik

The context being, the era of evolving designs such as Ikea Furniture and the Phono Cartridge Designs for the Vinyl LP at 331/3 and 45 RPM share a very similar time in history.

No matter what one does to them, in their attempts to attach the products to a desirable Heritage, there is no Heritage associated with the Design and Production of the modern world items, that spans back to the Period of History, where the Craftsmanship is revered, valued, protected and preserved.

That element of association is clever marketing, especially through a Models Naming being related to a Tradition, followed with the idea intimated of being Craftsmen Produced, or when an aesthetic is being added as a coating to a part belonging to the assembly, that is being awarded the status as a 10000-year old ancient tradition. Not one of these cleverly dropped in messages, is able to produce a Cartridge to an improved level, these are there to appeal to certain clientele and be persuasive in their content. Then there are those who actually believe the spiel. 

A person was once intercepted by a TV Team and asked on a TV interview, if they were in any way influenced by the methods used for Marketing Alcohol.

The person made it known they were absolutely not under any influence.

The person was then asked what their drink of choice was, which was made known to be Guiness.

The person was then asked why they would choose to drink Guiness, to which the reply was 'it's good for you'.     

Mijo, I hope you know that my question was not meant to upstage you. I was merely looking for the information you've kindly now provided.  I've hooked up my BMC to three different low output, low internal impedance cartridges, and I can confirm the relationship between impedances and apparent gain.  This is as theory predicts, but still it is quite interesting to me to experience it.

Ha!, the worlds best cartridge is the one I’m listening too now.  The others don’t matter. =)

@lewm , not at all Lew. I just got the tracking number on the MC Diamond. It will be delivered tomorrow. It is a higher impedance cartridge than the MSL, 6 ohms, so I shall see how big the drop of in gain is. I use the MSL on the lowest gain setting and there are 4 at 3 dB intervals. The signal to noise ratio won't be as good, but I can't imagine it won't be tolerable. 

What is the highest impedance cartridge you have used?