Moving coil with a bit less leading edge

John...At no time in this thread have I sensed you've tried "...to push a Zyx on [me]". As always, I enjoy reading your comments and taking in your impressions and insights. Plus, I appreciate your delineating the differences between some of the various models in the Zyx stable. I also take well your point regarding the incompatibility of impressive dynamic impact with a smoother leading edged cartridge. To some extent, I'm certainly willing to trade off some clean dynamic impact to get a bit of a smoother and perhaps more rounded presentation of instrumental/orchestral sound[s]. As others might have gathered from some of my previous posts, I've consistently maintained the sounds I most frequently hear at live orchestral concerts rarely display the kind of clean, tight contours quite a few audiophiles prefer from reproduced music in their home audio systems. So, carry on my fellow!

What about cartridges like:

47 Labs McBee
Yamamoto YC-03s
EMT TSD15 or JSD5
Miyajima Shilabe

Pani...You might be interested in going to the site known as 10 Audio and reading Jerry Siegel's detailed reviews of the Miyajima Shilabe and Miyajima Kansui cartridges. I found them quite interesting.

Is there something about AlNico magnets that all cartridges that use them normally tends to be "musical" ?

You will certainly get a more rounded, less edgy sound with a non-stone Koetsu (i.e., not the jades, or coralstone, etc). But, that comes with some woolly quality and overly prominent (and slow) upper bass.

I like Allaert cartridges for a smoother and refined sound while not giving up too much in dynamics.

Syntax raised a good point about cartridge arm compatibility. The Lyra cartridges have metal bodies designed to convey vibrational energy from the cartridge body into the arm for the arm to dampen/dissipate. The arm must be well designed for that task to get the most out of those cartridges. In some threads, Jonathan Carr, the designer of Lyra cartridges mentions some arms he considered well up to the task (sorry I cannot remember which arms are mentioned).