Superior Performance and Excellent Value for Money

The cartridges we sell have been selected from both personal experience and the opinions of trusted dealers and reviewers.

For this reason the range offers superior performance and excellent value for money.

Please note that we cannot send cartridges outside the UK – the only exception being our own Origin Live cartridges or cartridges less than £400 in value when ordered with an Origin Live arm or turntable.

We have provided extensive advice on choosing a cartridge and help to keep your cartridge/stylus in top condition.

How to choose your cartridge

One of the most common enquiries we receive is ‘What cartridge should I use with this arm/deck?’ There are many options so we try to simplify matters by offering a “hot list” of tried and tested cartridges, particularly recommended by those with wide experience. However we do provide most brands of Hi-Fi cartridges should you wish for something else.

To help your selection process the following aspects should to be considered:

The overall sound of your system – cartridge brands tend to have distinctive sound balances which we outline below. This aspect should match your system and affect your choice more than almost anything else.

The effective mass of your arm and cartridge compliance? This really depends on what arm you have – in short there is much more to matching than compliance and it’s quite rare that this has much serious influence on your cartridge performance so we do not advise on it. Origin Live tonearms seem completely impervious to the issue of compliance.

The quality of your phono stage – Budget phono stages (up to £600) tend to work best with moving magnet or high output moving coil cartridges. Most high end cartridges are moving coil or moving iron but due to their low output (0.5mV or less), you need a very good phono stage to realise their true performance. Poor phono stages usually lead to disappointment with MC cartridges. It’s worth adding that expensive phono stages are no guarantee of performance. There are a huge number of mediocre phono stages with excellent reviews that fall well short of the real market leaders. More on phono stages can be found here.

We suggest the phono stage should be around 2 to 5 times the cost of your cartridge if you are to get the best return on investment and so you might want to consider where you place your budget.

Abbreviations

– MM = moving magnet cartridge with high output and 47 Kohm impedance
– MC = moving coil cartridge with low output usually and 100 ohm impedance

A number of the high output moving coils use moving magnet input at 47 Kohms

Cheap cartridges?

There are sources that offer seemingly amazing prices on cartridges – we would urge caution on these purchases as you may not know what you’re getting. For example some Kouetsu’s are made specifically for the Far East market. These Kouetsu’s have a suspension system suited for hot climates and will not give optimum performance in colder climates.

Hot List of Cartridges with Strong Recommendations

It’s quite hard nowadays to purchase a “duff” cartridge so the choice boils down to personal taste, compatibility and system matching. For this reason, we can only offer guidelines on which cartridge to choose.

Higher-End Cartridges

High end cartridges such as Dynavector, Soundsmith, Hana, Lyra,  etc. all have their various strengths and reviews help to clarify your choice depending on your system and priorities. We particularly recommend Dynavector and Lyra cartridges but there are many other excellent cartridges which will work as well depending on your system and phono stage balance.

Dynavectors tend to be great all rounders with exceptional dynamics and nice tonal balance
Soundsmith are extremely involving with a natural, fluid flow in the music. Great tonal balance and texture along with good detail retrieval.
Hana are very transparent with a lot of detail but not quite the depth and weight of bass found elsewhere.
Lyra possesses exceptional transparency and detail retrieval. They are highly involving and have evolved over the years to leave behind their “analytical” reputation.

Mid-Market Cartridges

The Dynavector Karat 17d3 and XX2 are a moving coil cartridges which represent great value for money. The Lyra Delos has also gained an excellent reputation and is a safe choice. Soundmith cartridges rank very highly for their speed, fluidity and excellent tonal balance. And of course our own Alladin MKII made by Soundsmith ranks highly at this price point.

Slightly lower in the range, the Dynavector 10X5  is almost without peer at the price point.

If you do not have a reasonable moving coil phono stage with adjustable gain settings (above £800) then the Music Maker Mk III at £750 by The Cartridge Man is almost legendary as a design for moving magnet inputs.

Cartridges Below £600

The Goldring 1000 Series  (£195-325*) – have excellent tonal balance with warmth, good bass and a nice top end.

The Goldring 2000 Series (£145-599*) – introduced because some listeners with more bass oriented systems wanted greater clarity and detail – the 2000 series brings this but at the expense of warmth. This series is not better than the 1000 series, just different.

Audio-Technica have an exceptionally good range of budget cartridges (£39-599) – exhibiting good tonal balance with punch and a lively performance.

Brand sound descriptions

The remarks below are by no means definitive and are only intended as a guide to help those in no position to audition the multitude of options available.

Audio Technica – noted for definition, speed, clarity and detail – can be a little lean in the bass in some arms (seems most suited on Linn LP12 / Ittock or Akito combinations).

Clearaudio – very clean sounding cartridges, highly detailed, not exactly warm or deep.

Dynavector – Excellent all-round MC cartridges – high output versions are 10×5 and 20XH suitable for moving magnet inputs, low outputs are also available higher in the range. Dynavector 17D Karat is a favourite at its price point. The xx-2 seems rather system dependent.

Goldring – Rich sound with plenty of warmth and bass depth – a popular phono cartridge with Rega arm users – a very safe choice that sounds good on most systems.

Hana – Very nice tonal balance and a good all-rounder.

London – Outstanding Cartridges that lead the entire field in terms of vivid realism, dynamics and lifelike sound. Unique in construction and performance these cartridges have developed a loyal following for good reason. Drawbacks are poor tracking on damaged records and slight crackle on very worn records due to the fact that they pick up every tiny detail. The sheer dynamics, of these cartridges can cause compression effects and show up failings in poorer systems. This manifests itself in brightness and lightweight bass. In spite of these things many reviewers give Londons the highest praise. The benefits are so great that once heard there is no going back for some.

Lyra – Great tracking cartridges that deliver an organic presentation. May not always go quite as deep as Koetsus but have the edge in most other aspects such as transparency and imaging.

Ortofon cartridges are probably the most varied in terms of sound characteristics. High End Ortofon cartridges above £1000 are well balanced in their virtues and good value. Below this price there are various ranges some of which are ultra-clean and clinical with loads of detail like the Kontrapuncts and others like the Blue and Red which are the opposite in terms of capturing more warmth but which sound slightly thick in comparison to others.

Sumiko – A good choice for systems that are slightly bass heavy and need speed and agility adding, these cartridges have great resolution and are improved over previous models that tended to be lean in deep bass and low in warmth for some systems

Van Den Hul – For speed, dynamics and detail these cartridges are hard to surpass. Loved by many for these aspects they can err on the bass light side for others.

Zyx – Very good tonal balance with slight emphasis on dynamic and deep bass. One of the most natural sounding mid bands available, excellent clarity and separation of instruments, sweet top end without the explicitness or slight overemphasis of some high-end contenders. Slight question on longevity of the suspension which may start to fade slowly after 3 years.

Please contact us to place an order or obtain a quote on the pick-up cartridge of your choice