How Cartridges Fall Out Of Favor Over Time

Very interesting observation. I have owned very few cartridges... driven by large amounts of research and then just used them for a decade or more. So, I posed the question to ChatGPT. I will not reproduce it all. But here is one paragraph that I think is important. It acknowledges the change of favor.

This shift does not imply that these cartridges became worse. Rather, it reflects how the culture of vinyl playback evolves. Cartridge reputation is inseparable from the systems and listening priorities of its time. In the late analog revival, systems tended to favor warmth, forgiveness, and musical flow; many of these cartridges excelled precisely because they complemented those priorities. As phono stages became quieter and more adjustable, tonearms more rigid, and listeners more focused on resolution and micro-detail, the traits once celebrated—density, richness, and ease—were sometimes reinterpreted as coloration or lack of refinement.

Thanks for this thoughtful post on and starting this new topical thread.  

I think what you’re observing is less about those cartridges “falling out of favor” sonically, and more about how the hobby’s center of gravity keeps shifting.

Most of the cartridges you list were absolutely state of the art (or at least category-defining) in their time: Dynavector 10x5 and Karat series, Benz Ace and Glider, AT OC9 variants, Sumiko Blackbird and Blue Point, ZYX Bloom and Airy, Grado wood bodies. None of them suddenly got worse. What changed was the market’s attention span, price inflation at the top end, and the tendency for audiophiles to move “up the ladder” and psychologically downgrade what they used to own.

A lot of those models occupied a very important middle-to-upper tier sweet spot. As people upgraded systems and cartridges, they often replaced them with options offering incremental gains, then mentally reclassified the old ones as dated—even if the musical gap wasn’t that large. There’s also a real fashion cycle in analog. Brands like Benz and ZYX didn’t disappear because their designs stopped working; they faded because distribution, marketing, and succession matter as much as sound. Meanwhile, companies like Audio-Technica, Lyra, Ortofon, etc. kept iterating visibly and stayed part of the conversation.

On your specific question about the ART20 versus older high-tier cartridges, I’d expect the ART20 to sound cleaner, faster, more extended at the frequency extremes, and to have a lower noise floor. But not necessarily more musically convincing than a well-sorted Proteus or Kiseki OG Blackheart. Many of those older high-end designs trade a bit of ultimate resolution for density, tonal saturation, and flow—qualities that still matter a great deal over long listening sessions.

In that sense, the ART20 will likely sound more modern/contemprary rather than automatically “better”. Different priorities, different compromises. Keeping cartridges like the Blackbird L and Glider for casual duty actually makes a lot of sense—they’re musically complete, robust, and enjoyable, and they remind us that progress in analog tends to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

I think the real takeaway is that many cartridges don’t fall out of favor because they’re eclipsed; they fall out of favor because their owners move on (for a variety of reasons), and collective memory in this hobby is shockingly short.

Experience has a sound.

Inna:

I agree with the premise, but I’d frame it a bit differently. The value of multiple turntables or multiple arms shouldn’t be about about excess or collecting for its own sake — it’s should be about reducing compromise.

Cartridges ask for different things: effective mass, geometry, loading, gain, even cabling. Trying to make one arm and one phono stage do everything well is possible, but it’s rarely optimal. Multiple arms (or tables) simply let each cartridge operate closer to its comfort zone, with less swapping and fewer “close enough” decisions.

That said, there’s a very real practical limit imposed by space and money. Most of us hit it sooner or later. At that point the question stops being “what’s ideal?” and becomes “what’s the smartest allocation of resources?” For many listeners, one well-chosen table with two or three arms, gets most of the benefit without turning the system into a storage problem.

The same logic applies to phono stages. Tube vs solid state, step-up vs active gain — they’re tools, not indulgences. You don’t need all of this to enjoy records, but if analog is a primary source, thoughtful system architecture can improve consistency and reduce churn more effectively than constant upgrades.

In the end, it’s less about how much gear you own and more about how intentionally it’s deployed.

Experience has a sound.

@ulcerdoc Thank you for contributing your thoughtful and well reasoned post. It provides points of view that are worth considering. I am interested in seeing what additional posts and thoughts are shared. 

Dynavector 17D3 is a fabulous cartridge. I listen to mine quite often. There are many other great cartridges that do not get much mention in threads. So what?