The AT150MLX is where it's at. I've never owned an Orto personally but a friend of mine does, 2M Bronze. I don't like the sound of it, sounds muffled to my ears. The bass and mid were there but the high end suffers and he also had sibilance on some LPs. It also sounded very neutral and didn't seem to have a wide soundstage. It could be his setup but it just lacks that ol' Audio-Technica shine.
I will also suggest the Nagaoka 500. I think it's a great sounding cartridge. It will be warmer sounding than the Black, but no loss of detail. It is also very quiet in the groove and dynamic. I run mine into the Accession and they work well together. The Nagaoka is worth looking at.
If I may ask, what kind of things are you hearing with this cart that makes you prefer it? I've heard that the modern AT carts are sort of bright and I honestly don't like bright carts. As mentioned, I do have a older AT cart, but it never came off as bright at any time of its life. I wouldn't mind a little better bass response, but I'm pretty ok with my system as is. But it could always be better.
You can look at the frequency response graphs of some "modern" AT carts here: Audio-Technica VM540ML Phono Cartridge Review - HomeTheaterHifi.com Audio-Technica VM760SLC Phono Cartridge Review - HomeTheaterHifi.com The 540ML has a small rise between 10-16K. Looks like it's only a couple dB, so nothing major. I would say that is pretty good. If you want severely rolled off highs, look elsewhere. A lot of the talk about brightness on "modern" AT carts is nonsense IMHO, mainly from people that have too much capacitance in their system or that don't know how to load a cartridge, or think that severely rolled off highs are where it's at. Here is what my Signet/AT ML combo looks like loaded at 39K. The cart body is old but the magnets are fairly fresh because they are in the stylus assembly. AT replaced this 440Mlb stylus with the 540ML stylus. The 540 was supposed to tame the brightness of the 440 series when loaded at 47K. The review linked above goes into more detail about that.
I agree. This rise is noticeable but not exaggerated. It is a very good cartridge and tracks perfectly. To my tastes and in my system it lacks punch and excitement however, something I needed a cartridge costing three times its price to get.
The 540ML is the one I ended up buying. I'm really happy with my AT cart that is 3 generations older so I'm thinking this should be an improvement without being too different. Should be here in a couple days so I have the weekend to do some maintenance on my Dual 1219 and set the cart up. Supposed to rain all weekend so it's a good time to do it.
It will fit, but the vtf will be higher than the 150mlx stylus. 1.8-2.2g is the recommended vtf for the 760SLC.
After many years of running AT150MLX and liking it, I decided to switch and went for the Ortofon 2M Black. Everybody's got different tastes and setups but in my case, the Black was a serious upgrade in detail. So much more meat on the bones now, specifically the midrange, which was always recessed in the AT and became apparent as soon as I changed.
If you still have the 150MLX, the ATN150Sa Shibata stylus mates to the 150 and will keep up with the black and its Shibata tip.
Yes, I still have it and I actually did look at the shibata replacement but decided to go Ortofon. Glorious midrange with no midband suckout.
I have the 2m Black along with the MP-500 which i generally prefer, also have a blackbird Lo. Picked up a 760MLC today so i guess we’ll see how it does in the mix.
So far, so good! It started out a bit dry, but after about an hour or so really came to life. I've only spun 10 or so records on it, but so far I like the sound quite a lot. I would say that the 760 and MP500 are very similar in their presentation. For now I've the Nag on my MkII, the 760 on the GR and the Blackbird on the Oracle. I also have the Evo3 on the 6Perspex as that's how that table come. I plan on selling the ProJect and haven't really decided what to do with the Oracle yet. I really just enjoy the Technics platform more than the fancier setups.
Any updates on the 760 on your GR? I'm thinking of buying a second cartridge and the 760 is on my shortlist
I spun a handful of records last night and I didn't give a thought to what cartridge I had on the GR. In reality, that's about the best recommendation I can make.
Seen so many threads lately where people want to move from Ortofon's to AT's. That's a good move if you want more detail and a brighter sound (imo) Could be wise if you have a soft amp or speakers that are not too brittle in the high frequencies. Have to keep the capacitance low using an AT cart.
