Recommend me a Cartridge

I reckon I have a pretty "catholic" taste in music much like yourself so I'd recommend a Goldring 2200 (About £100) I just bought one a few weeks ago and am very happy with it. Also you can always upgrade this cartridge later with a new stylus rather than needing a whole new assembly.

Hi

Is it worth spending a lot on a cartridge when my setup is pretty average overall? I mean, I'm looking at getting an Ortofon OM5E instead now as they are only about £38 and they seem to get good reviews and are seen as reliable.

Thanks for your help.

Ortofon 2M Red, about £60...

d3moliti0n:

I'm looking at getting an Ortofon OM5E instead now as they are only about £38 and they seem to get good reviews and are seen as reliable.

I had one of those on my setup - was very happy with it - then when I wanted to upgrade I only needed to change the stylus - and have gone up now to the OM10

Audio Technica AT110E - roughly £35. Legendary cartridge, performance way above its' price band.

the record spot:

Audio Technica AT110E - roughly £35. Legendary cartridge, performance way above its' price band.

Was Legendary. Sadly no more.

The AT-110E was discontinued in early 2009...the AT-95E is now the audiophile entry AT cartridge, at around £30-35.

TBH, the Ortofon OM5E is such a good match for the Dual's ultra low mass arm, I can't see a good reason for looking at anything else. And it can be upgraded via different styli, from the 10 at around £50, up to the 40 at £200.

Bit of a problem there. The Dual CS505-1 was originally fitted with an Ortofon TKS49S cartridge (badged Dual) which used a unique slider mechanism to secure it to the headshell rather than the normal 1/2 inch mounting. Now, at that time there was an adaptor available which meant you could also use normal cartridges but (unfortunately) I haven't seen one of these for over 15 years and there is no other way of fitting a standard cartridge to the deck. If you can find one of these sliders on Ebay then you may be in luck, otherwise you are somewhat stuck with the original cartridge.

Unfortunately, as it was an OEM product, the license for resale was with Dual and (to the best of my knowledge) this has never been released.

Ah. New tonearm time then...

TBH, new turntable time.

Dual 505/2s go for about £30 on ebay, and have the standard 1/2" cartridge mount.

The Pioneer PL-12d is also a good bet for similar money (I have both, and for my money the Pioneer is ahead by a fair margin).

Either a 505/2 or a Pl-12d (with either the AT-95E for the pioneer or a OM5E for the 505/2) shouldn't set you back much more than £60 or so. Still well within budget...

Well considering I only bought the turntable, amp and speakers about a month ago (I'm brand new to the world of vinyl and turntables) there is no way I will be buying another of any of those items at any time soon. I just want a cartridge to play records, not some Nasa space station setup. People go into way too much detail for my liking, I just want to collect vinyl and be able to play it at a good quality, I don't want ridiculously expensive components or certain audio qualities etc. Just a good quality playback of vinyl.

I have been told on many occasions that the OM5e will fit a Dual CS 505-1. I have also been told that it is a good cartridge for the money and may be a bit 'light' or 'fatiguing' but I honestly have no idea what that means and I couldn't care less. I just want to be able to play my records without them getting damaged and to a good audio quality. End of.

its a good cartridge so you can buy with confidence

also its upgradeable if one day the urge strikes 

one off:

its a good cartridge so you can buy with confidence

also its upgradeable if one day the urge strikes 

Thank you, a straight and to the point answer. That is more like it. I don't really want to know the ins and outs of how these things work, I just want to know whether it's good/worth the money and if it will work with my setup.

Thanks again.

I'm a little offended by your comments - we are only trying to help.

To put things basically - if the headshell (that's the bit on the end of the arm that holds the cartridge) has two screws, you can put on whatever cartridge you want.

If it has only one (as Henley suspects) then you are stuck, and no amount of comments will help.

End of rant.

I apologise if it was a bit strong but as I said, people tend to veer completely off the topic by suggesting I buy new turntables and tonearms etc. Surely there must be simpler ways, such as cartridges available for that specific type of headshell, rather than having to buy a whole new turntable or tonearm, thats if it won't fit, I'm not sure cos I'm not at home at the moment so I can't check the headshell for the number of screws it has.

You can buy a replacement stylus from Musonic, good deck, good cartridge, about £25.00.