Conical cartridge question


I have been experimenting with an el cheapo AT conical for my at times challenging used LP scores... And surprisingly... Soundwise...its fairly competitive... Not a smooth, defined sound...kinda dry but energetic...and decent detail..and the bonus...very quiet background...however tracking is problematic...outside of Denon...who makes a current production conical that tracks well and sounds good for lower cost? I'm hesitant to go DJ carts..shure/Stanton..or should I be?
128x128phasecorrect
You'd better stay away of modern dj cartridges like current production of stanton, sure, ortofon. I have 17 years experience being a pro dj myself. They are all good trackers but the sound is very thin, not involving. The best sounding dj cartridge is high compliance MI type Grado DJ200i (elliptical), you will get frequency extreme over all other dj carts and much nicer overall sound. But there is still some limitations as ther are all made for pro use.

My advise is to try vintage MM Denon DL-107 if you want conical. That was mm broadcast alternative to dl103mc. This is a budged cartridge. All others like ADC, Technics, Garrott are in the different price category but much better!
Denon dl103r on my linn axis seems like a tracking champ. It's dead quiet and always seems to get the job done well. Best I have ever had. Have not tried many others in recent years though. There is just no reason to.
Sumiko Oyster at 75 $ does all that with fine sound with a spherical stylus which amounts to the same thing.
Mixed reviews on oyster... At one time I had the Pearl...very nice cart...Very competitive with more well known mm grados,shure...nicely balanced with slightly warm,musical presentation...if you gravitate towards a laid back cart... You will drool over this...not really geared for rock tho.
When some people talking about trackabityly or quietness of some cartridges which make then better that others in these terms i just don't understand it. Believe it or not but i never had any tracking problems with cartridges of different types (mc, mi, mm) at different price category, playin' different kind of music with different tracking force (from 1g to 4g). I believe it's a problem of tonearm set-up if you have tracking problems, or it must be deffected cartridge. My records are not ideal.

I had mistracking problem only one with brand new cartridge, it was Ortofon SPU Spirit ltd. (elliptical with 8n copper coil) for japanese market only. Great sounding cartridge but on some records there was a tracking problem! At the same tome classic Ortofon SPU conical never had any tracking problem on the same records/tonearm. I returned SPU Spirit to the seller. Since that time i tried many cartridges and never had tracking problems with any of them.

Also i never had noisy cartridges, they all were dead quite with my 101db speakers. If the wires are good i guess there should't be any noise at all.

Just buy a good stuff.