Well, I'm pretty sure that my 20+ year old Signet TK7 cart is finally
loosing its tracking ability. I have a relatively new stylus in it but
I've heard some annoying artifacts in a couple records that I don't
recall. I'll pull the test record this weekend to confirm.
I would buy another Signet if they were still manufactured, but they
aren't so I've been researching carts and have come to the following
choices in my modest price range:


Shure V15xMR. Its a moving magnet with 3.0 mV output. This is good
as the Signet was 2.5 and I felt a little more gain in the preamp
would have helped.
The risky side of this cart and my TT is the match with my tonearm.
Shure doesn't publish compliance specs (but I've read they are in the
20 to 25 ucm/dyne range. The tonearm mass also isn't spec'd but is
identifed as "medium" in the Mitsubishi docs. Unfortunately, Signet
doesn't spec compliance (if anyone knows where to find this, please
let me know) so I can't just go for similar compliance to that cart.
Anyway a high compliance cart works best with a low mass arm. The
Mitsu is linear tracking so the arm is short. I'm wondering if the
short tube (low mass) overcomes the short cantilever to the
counterbalance which I would think is a large eq. mass contributor.
Shure also incorporates a brush which they advertise as a damping
mechanism to help with tonearm/cart resonance. I'd rather not go
there. I also don't have any warped albums that I can recall or a
problem with footfall in my room. I had a Shure M93E on an AR TT a
lifetime ago (completely different system) and was very happy with it
until I got tired of waking up to the stylus on label scratch.

Choice 2 : Audio Technica OC9ML/II This is a moving coil with .4mV
output and recomended load of 20 ohms. My pre-amp (Yamaha C-60) has a
moving coil input with 100uV sensitivity with choices of 1K ohm and
100 ohms.
Needle doctor says no problem and if I don't like it or it doesn't
work, I can return it. The compliance of this cart is 9ucm/dyne.
Much lower compliance than the Shure and should be no problem for a
"medium mass" arm. Audio Technica was the manufacturer of the Signet
line.

Both carts are designed for neutral response rather than a particular
sound. Reviews show the AT cart being a little more revealing while
the Shure is considered very neutral (perhaps a bit warm) and a
superior tracker.

TIA for your comments.