Top 5 favorite MM cartridges currently available

Clearaudio Maestro Wood - a step up from the also excellent Virtuoso Wood.

Mo-fi, I would think he wants a high output cartridge "like" a moving magnet, so I don't know whether he would exclude an MI type from the search. An "MM" phono stage will typically deal with either unless the output is unusually low, as for a few MI types and a rarer few MM types. Anyway, ... cool.

Hello Mechans, Did you intend to exclude MI cartridge's or was it an oversight? That cuts out several good manufacturers. Not only Grado but the very good Soundsmith line. OK either way.

Triode, Is the Maestro really a step up from Virtuoso? Several on the other MM thread suggested it was not as good, let alone better, than the V. I have no opinion, not having heard either.

Triode&Lew, The Clearaudio series MM carts differ only qua
cantilever /styli and corpus (wood + metal kind). According
to Raul Peter Ledermann told him that the Virtuoso stylus was 'mediocre'. I assume that Raul retipped his Virtuoso by Peter. When we discussed cantilevers in the MM thread J. Carr mentioned the difference between aluminum cantilevers versus the 'exotic kind' (boron, ruby,etc). In the 'éxotic' kind the stylus must be glued while in aluminum they can be pressure fitted. This way there is a direct connection between the stylus and the cantilever. That is btw why I asked Axel to 'upgrade' my Virtuoso with
the nude line stylus pressure fitted in a(tapered) aluminum cantilever. We of course assume that cantilevers and styli do matter. Halcro also ordered the same upgrade for his Virtuoso black by Axel and was 'euphoric' about the result. Not sure however how much importance one should attribute to his opinion because his 'euphoria' reg. the
MM as well as LOMC's carts seems to have no bondaries.

Regards,