What is the "best" cartridge a Technics 1210...

Denon. Whatever one you can afford and matches the capabilities of your phono stage. The DL-110 and DL-160 are great for MM stages, but the DL-103 is an even better match if you have appropriate gain and loading. The DL-S1 is an amazing cartridge but it does require a very, very good phono stage or step-up transformer to hear it at its best. Quite frankly, the DL-103 performs in some ways as well as cartridges costing two or three times it price.

We can -- and have -- debated the Technics' weaknesses, but I think one that is fairly well established is that it can have a somewhat truncated lateral soundstage. The Denon cartridges are not only smooth sounding and great trackers, but they are renowned for their wide, deep soundstaging, which helps mitigate what is for me the only truly glaring weakness of the Technics.

I had used the Nagaoka MP-110 cartridge on my MkII and liked it very much but, itching to try something else, I bought a Zupreme headshell and added the Dynavector 10X5 which was even better. The Dynavector is a high output MC so is suitable using the phone stage's MM output. I tried it on MC but the MM had a lower noise floor.

My 'table has the KAB damping trough plus I'm using the TTweights copper mat as well as their 1 lb. record weight. The copper mat is placed on top of a stock 1/8" rubber mat which both damps the platter and provides VTA adjustment with "thinner" bodied cartridges.

Stanton 680 EL
Ortophon Nightclub E

I wonder if anyone has tried even higher-end MC carts with the Technics -- stuff in the >$1K range from Benz, Koetsu, Lyra, ZYX, Sumiko, etc. I know it =seems= like a mismatch from a price standpoint, but is it really?

I know a guy that runs his M5G with a Dyna XV-1s and thinks its an outstanding table, he also has a top flight phono stage.