Which carts do you use on your turntables?

milltown

The Stanton 500 carts that came with my decks are of indeterminate age and I suspect could do with being replaced. I put new stylii on them when I got them but they have a bit of a tendency to hop out of the groove when cuing. One is worse than the other, confirmed by swapping them around and the problem followed the cart. Reliable cuing on the worse one requires so much weight on the tonearm that the sound is noticably affected.

Window shopping on Thomann, a pair of Stanton discmasters look to be reasonably priced but reviews seem mixed (sic) at best. I've heard a lot of good things about the Shure White Labels but that'll run me an extra 70 quid for the pair.

I'll only be playing at home through a pair of 30w active monitors. Will I notice much difference between the 100 quid a pair option versus the 100 quid each option?

What have you guys used, and what would you recommend?

BaZmO*

milltown wrote: »

Will I notice much difference between the 100 quid a pair option versus the 100 quid each option?

I'd love to see how many people could actually tell the difference in a blind test. I doubt many could.

Personally I've never liked the look of those Discmaster/Concord style carts, but that's just aesthetics. I have the Whitelabels and they're great, but they are expensive.

frozenfrozen

I use Shure M447s and they're absolutely flawless. The price is very reasonable, replacement styli can be got for sub 20 quid and with a tracking force of only 2.5g, they're completely glued into the grooves and never skip, regardless of how crazily you want to backspin. They're also very loud, and quite bass heavy which suits my style of usage.


You know you want them

BaZmO*

frozenfrozen wrote: »

I use Shure M447s and they're absolutely flawless. The price is very reasonable, replacement styli can be got for sub 20 quid and with a tracking force of only 2.5g, they're completely glued into the grooves and never skip, regardless of how crazily you want to backspin. They're also very loud, and quite bass heavy which suits my style of usage.


You know you want them

Yeah but they're the industry standard for turntablists and as such very bassy, and more importantly (for that style) stick like glue.

Scubadevils

Stanton Trackmaster II, the ones Baz doesn't like :pac: Have them a few years, can't remember what I paid for them now but I like 'em.