Cart for Basis Debut/Graham?

I would add to Kurt's great post. I would have you seriously check out a Sumiko Celebration (new from @$1100, to used for much less)

Works much more friendly with your unipivot bearing, than any Shelter cart. Better frequency extremes than a Koetsu, or 501, yet has this killer midrange and huge soundstage;Meat on dem bones - great midrange also.

Keep in mind, I have a Basis/Vector combo with my Celebration. The Basis bass can be as big as any table, but you cannot use bass lite carts like the 501, with bass lite arms like the 1.5. The Celebration is even top to bottom - when properly loaded(same as with any cart). As is the Vector - and thus the Basis TT can have a great bottom end. But if you use a light bottom end cart like the 501 or a Koetsu, with your 1.5 tonearm, with the energy the Shelter is going to feedback into your Graham, I think there are better choices. Your thoughts on a Denon 103R is a great way to go, can't go wrong there - I just think the Shelters aren't the best match to your arm (search the archives for others thoughts here as well). Let alone the Basis TT (at least the 501, the 901 and 90x match MUCH better to the TT, but still not to your arm)

Kurt - Thanks for your thoughtful response. Yes, I'm the lucky guy who snagged the Debut on Agon. Apparently I wasn't alone in thinking it was a good deal. Living in the same area as the seller eliminated the need to pack and ship, which was a bonus for both of us.

Here I am trying to conserve money and you've got me buying a Rhea (just kidding). I almost jumped on a used Janus recently for $3,900. But having friends who own Callisto's which have been somewhat less than reliable, I thought better of it. But after getting the Basis, if I could sell the Viva Linea preamp and E.A.R. 834p for close to the price of a used Janus, I'd probably do it.

You suggest trying a Shelter 90x, but it seems Monk doesn't think the Shelters match well with the Graham arm. Is this just a difference of opinion or do the arm/cart matching formulas bear this out? I'm new to vinyl, so it gets confusing determining which arm goes well with which type of cartridge. High compliance/low compliance, high effective mass/low effective mass. Then there's medium, which is really a gray area.

I'm open to any and all opinions and suggestions. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond. Your input is very valuable to me and will be seriously considered.

Unfortunately the concensus seems to be that I'll have to spend a considerable amount of money to really do justice to the table and arm. I guess that will offset the good deal I got on the table, huh?

Hi Kenl,

Stick with your original plan: buy a good cartridge for the meantime and enjoy the purchase before enbarking on a costly journey to buy more stuff like a preamp, etc. - that's not how it works!

Give A.J. Conti a call at Basis and ask him what cartridge would be a good fit, period.

No need to completely revamp your system - it's very good as is. (Or go one step at a time.)

George

Ngeorge - Thanks for bringing me back to earth. I sometimes have a tendency to believe that more expensive equipment is the way to solve a problem. You're right that my current equipment should be good enough to provide more than adequate performance. I think it's just a matter of proper cartridge matching and proper set-up.

While I suspect that a higher performance phono stage might elevate the system, I don't think that's the cause of my current problem, especially considering it sounded very good with a cheap Denon direct drive table with ancient Denon MC cartridge. I think a moving coil is more to my liking, and the E.A.R. probably sounds better with one as well.

Avoid the Dynavector 17 D2 MKII. I really was extremely disappointed with this, at least in my system. Very, VERY, light in bass.