Phono Cartridges - Your favorites and least favorites?

Joe Mac said:
What would you say the trade off is with the elliptical stylus? Is there anything that you would say the SL does markedly better? It’s by far and away the best cartridge I’ve had!
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As promised @Joe Mac, 50+ hours on the EL and I'm happy to report my original thoughts are pretty spot on. The EL opened up nicely, it's a beautiful presentation and has the same characteristics that the SL has, but the devil is in the detail.

While the EL on it's own is rock solid and a great "bang for your buck" as far as a solid MC option at a great price, the SL is better in my opinion. It's been tough, the EL sounds great, has detail and separation and you wouldn't know it if you didn't have the experience with an SL. The SL just brought out a little more in a more smooth detailed fashion, obviously due to the stylus and better frequency response.

Of course, that's at a cost and if it's "worth it" falls on each person. I'm torn at the moment, I really am, that's how nice the EL is, but I'm also shopping true end game, so I might ride this out for a while and really think through the "last" cart moving forward. The EL is an easy recommendation for a solid entry point to MC, even it's replacement cost is reasonable at $380.

With everything else going on, I'm crawling forward at this point and just thinking twice...........sometimes to the point of annoyance going back and forth. But all I have to do is spin a few albums and it calms the itch to spend money on another cart, lol.

"Is there anything that you would say the SL does markedly better?" - It presents a cleaner high end, smoother mids and bass, and an overall more neutral presentation with a slightly better soundstage. The details are a bit cleaner and accurate as well. The hard part is that again, on it's own, you wouldn't look at the EL and say those things are lacking, they're not, it's just that you'll notice they were missing when you listen to the SL, as you should, which brings us back to "is it worth it", and I'm not 100% sure right now.

The thorn in my side is knowing what the SL does, if I didn't know, it would be an easier "acceptance" of the EL, lol
 
AnthonyI said:
As promised @Joe Mac, 50+ hours on the EL and I'm happy to report my original thoughts are pretty spot on. The EL opened up nicely, it's a beautiful presentation and has the same characteristics that the SL has, but the devil is in the detail.

While the EL on it's own is rock solid and a great "bang for your buck" as far as a solid MC option at a great price, the SL is better in my opinion. It's been tough, the EL sounds great, has detail and separation and you wouldn't know it if you didn't have the experience with an SL. The SL just brought out a little more in a more smooth detailed fashion, obviously due to the stylus and better frequency response.

Of course, that's at a cost and if it's "worth it" falls on each person. I'm torn at the moment, I really am, that's how nice the EL is, but I'm also shopping true end game, so I might ride this out for a while and really think through the "last" cart moving forward. The EL is an easy recommendation for a solid entry point to MC, even it's replacement cost is reasonable at $380.

With everything else going on, I'm crawling forward at this point and just thinking twice...........sometimes to the point of annoyance going back and forth. But all I have to do is spin a few albums and it calms the itch to spend money on another cart, lol.

"Is there anything that you would say the SL does markedly better?" - It presents a cleaner high end, smoother mids and bass, and an overall more neutral presentation with a slightly better soundstage. The details are a bit cleaner and accurate as well. The hard part is that again, on it's own, you wouldn't look at the EL and say those things are lacking, they're not, it's just that you'll notice they were missing when you listen to the SL, as you should, which brings us back to "is it worth it", and I'm not 100% sure right now.

The thorn in my side is knowing what the SL does, if I didn't know, it would be an easier "acceptance" of the EL, lol
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Nice! My initial feelings were that it’d be a similar house sound but with a drop in detail. With another brand I might have said less picky with pressings but tbh for a shiabata the SL is actually not all that picky. How close difference sounds from your impressions really is a testament to how good Hana are.
 
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Joe Mac said:
Nice! My initial feelinfs were that it’d be a similar house sound but with a drop in detail. With another brand I might have said less picky with pressings but tbh for a shiabata the SL is actually not all that picky. How close difference sounds from your impressions really is a testament to how good Hana are.
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Ya, I'm honestly looking at each step "up" on the Hana line as just more of a good thing ;)
 
AnthonyI said:
<snip>...
The thorn in my side is knowing what the SL does, if I didn't know, it would be an easier "acceptance" of the EL, lol
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^^^^
THE reason you never listen to a component, in your own system, that you might think to be better than your current setup. The less you know about "other" components the better for your general wellness and wallet. :)
 
As you might discern from my signature line, I haven’t followed my own advice. Much to my lovely wife’s chagrin over the last 40 years. 😜
 
kvetcha said:
Shipped off my Zephyr last week. Just received an email from Sound-Smith stating it is undergoing inspection and that average turnaround time for rebuilds is 8-14 weeks. Will report back when it returns home!
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14 weeks could be quite a while. What are you using to spin until then?
 
In the never ending back and forth of carts, we've come across a new wrinkle.

In sharing info, I've been going back and forth with the 1042 and EL for a while, I had the 1042 edging out the EL a bit last we spoke, but I tossed the EL back on and did a little more number crunching, along with replacing the stock wires on the head shell and shorter interconnects, and found a real sweet spot that shot the EL past the 1042 closer to SL territory.

So the "changes" were the wires, interconnects and dropping the pF to 50, as always, seems like the smallest simplest things sometimes garner the best responses. So the overall EL settings ended up being 50pF / 800ohms / 60db.

I still put the 1042 as the best option before hitting MC carts, and the EL is solid at the MC entry point. All of this of course if you can handle the settings tweaks we keep talking about.
 
AnthonyI said:
In the never ending back and forth of carts, we've come across a new wrinkle.

In sharing info, I've been going back and forth with the 1042 and EL for a while, I had the 1042 edging out the EL a bit last we spoke, but I tossed the EL back on and did a little more number crunching, along with replacing the stock wires on the head shell and shorter interconnects, and found a real sweet spot that shot the EL past the 1042 closer to SL territory.

So the "changes" were the wires, interconnects and dropping the pF to 50, as always, seems like the smallest simplest things sometimes garner the best responses. So the overall EL settings ended up being 50pF / 800ohms / 60db.

I still put the 1042 as the best option before hitting MC carts, and the EL is solid at the MC entry point. All of this of course if you can handle the settings tweaks we keep talking about.
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Very interesting. Of course, I’m still rooting for the EL! Surprised that the capacitance mattered (it’s not really supposed to for a MC) and the 800 ohm setting is double the nominal minimum of at least 400 ohms. I ran my SL at 1000 ohms with the Insight for lack of options between 200 and 1000 ohms, but was happy with it there.
 
Angsty said:
Very interesting. Of course, I’m still rooting for the EL! Surprised that the capacitance mattered (it’s not really supposed to for a MC) and the 800 ohm setting is double the nominal minimum of at least 400 ohms. I ran my SL at 1000 ohms with the Insight for lack of options between 200 and 1000 ohms, but was happy with it there.
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I’ve run my SL at 400/800/1.2k and 800 is definitely a sweet spot for it!
 
Angsty said:
Very interesting. Of course, I’m still rooting for the EL! Surprised that the capacitance mattered (it’s not really supposed to for a MC) and the 800 ohm setting is double the nominal minimum of at least 400 ohms. I ran my SL at 1000 ohms with the Insight for lack of options between 200 and 1000 ohms, but was happy with it there.
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I hear ya, but I'm pretty close to ignoring all logic in this hobby, lol. 800 ohms just gave it a bit more "air", I preferred it to 400 ohms, but again, everyone has preferences in sound characteristics, so it truly is a person to person thing at the end of the day. Opinions and reviews can get you in the ball park, but your ears will be the final judge.
 
Well, after a long time out of commission (I unmounted it in Sep '21 because it was abundantly clear that 1,400 odd hours since 2017 were all the stylus could handle, ignored it, sent it off for rebuild in March which was completed in June, whereupon it was shipped back to the UK... and then, thanks to a label error promptly returned to the Netherlands 🥴), the Van den Hul is back;
vdh.jpg

The reviewer in me dies hard so I'm obligated to note the things that make it annoying are still very annoying. It tracks at a peculiar 1.45 grams. The 0.65v output is set almost perfectly to be a bit hot for 60dB of gain but too feeble for 50dB and it is quite demanding on the arm you put it in (it's been used on a few different ones since I've had but it really likes SME ones best).

And do you know what? After half a side of music, I didn't give a single shiny shit about any of that. This is still a staggeringly good cartridge; at once accurate and very detailed but unfailingly sweet with it. The Vertere Mystic I bought ahead of the turntable is better... but that's now £2,200 while the Van den Hul, is against logic and reason, still the same £999 in the UK that it was back in 2017. If you can accommodate its foibles, in the wacky world of moving coil cart pricing, a genuine bargain and I am delighted to have it back in harness.
 
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