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4-500 $ cartridge for Project Debut Carbon ?

I recently gifted a niece a Carbon Debut TT with mounted Ortofon Red in hopes of encouraging interest she has shown lately in Classical Music.
It sounds quite good esp. since she's running it through an old Yamaha A-1000 amp with an excellent phono stage(2 actually).Suppose the Caras phono IC i threw in helped as well.
I put on the old Fritz Reiner Chicago "Scheherazade",
which as many of you know, has a huge dynamic range, I was quite surprised the Project took it all in stride with just a slight hardening of strings on those tremendous crecendos.
As she has 94db eff speakers and the A-1000 is powerful I don't think it was clipping. I'm thinking perhaps a better cartridge might do the trick ? Nagoka MP 300 is first thing that comes to mind,but my mind is old and needs help.
schubert
schubert OP
7,386 posts
 
The few Benz Gliders I've heard were excellent.Thanks.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
I would do it a little different. Instead of spending it all on a new cart, I would get a combo. For a cart I would look at something like a DV 10x5 or a Shelter 201. Use the rest and get a phono pre from Cambridge, MF, Pro Ject etc.. The reason I would do that instead is upgrading the phono pre may actually be a bigger upgrade than the cart.
schubert OP
7,386 posts
 
The A-1000 was Yamahas top intergrated when vinyl was King,I know ,fact certain, its better than at least the Cambridge and Project , in fact IMHO it sounds better than the Slee I use.
maclogan
49 posts
 
The Project Debut is not a bad turntable - for the money. But it is not a great tt. In my experience an average cartridge on a great tt beats a great cartridge on an average tt any day.

So examine your sound quality and financial priorities.
schubert OP
7,386 posts
 
$ 400 with a decent cart is a fantastic deal for a TT that is not great or bad but is very good.

My experience is the opposite of yours.
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