Relatively Affordable Mono Cartridges

Jim Hannon -- Wed, 10/11/2006 - 01:50

Besides the Helikon Mono, what are some other good (and hopefully less expensive) mono cartridge alternatives?

My collection of mono classical and jazz recordings is large enough to probably warrant a separate mono cart, which I can have pre-mounted on a spare Graham arm-wand.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Scott Naylor -- Fri, 10/13/2006 - 15:03

Jim-

Nothing to recommend and I suppose the gist of this is "I feel your pain!" There is such a quality gap between the little Denon, Grados, and Rega offerings and the mono Helikon. I like to think there would be a greater clamor for this particular colored elephant if we all could hear just what a nice, fat mono Decca or Blue Note sounds like with that Lyra and a phono pre- with a true mono setting!

Evidently creating a mono version of an existing cartridge is akin to a complete re-design (as opposed to disconnecting one wire - hah!) which is what I suspect keeps it cost prohibitive for the Lyras, clearaudios, etc's of the world. I'd be the first to spring for a mono Dorian, 17D3, or Blackbird.

Perhaps considering the new mono DV XV-1s makes the mono Helikon ticket price more palatable? Uh, didn't work for me either... :wink:

best,
Scott

Post new comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Comment: *

Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <img>
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Each email address will be obfuscated in a human readable fashion or (if JavaScript is enabled) replaced with a spamproof clickable link.

More information about formatting options

Anti-Spam:

You are seeing this because you do not have javascript enabled. Please enter the words "not spam" to continue sumbiting the form.