Conical cartridge question

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.

Black pearl by sumiko?...anybody try it?

Phasecorrect,
AT has a new cart with a spherical tip. It's the 5V. The motor is similar to a 150MLX and it seems to be made for med mass arms. The stylus is interchangeable with modern 100 series (100E, 440ML, 150MLX, 7V) so it could possibly be used for your better pressings as well. It's $94 at Lp Gear.
The AT7V is a .2 x .7 elliptical also for med/heavy arms. It has a higher inductance motor so the sound tends to be more full bodied, sweeter. With the body you prefer you could substitute styli as appropriate.

From what you say about the Pearl I think you prefer laid back, and the 7V body might be more to your liking. It's been my experience that the AT carts have greater detail/resolution top to bottom, but must be loaded and matched properly. You didn't mention arm and preamp, but AT's want less than 200pF total capacitance load.

What cheap AT do you have now?
Regards,