Phono Cartridges

The Shure White label is a light weight turntable cartridge that has a high visibility stylus. This cartridge is one of the newest ones that I just purchased. The design of it is very attractive, it is sleek and easy to work with and it has great tracking for time coding my vinyl records. This cartridge is great for digital DJ’s as well. This cartridge sounds great too, it does not color the sound and has a very club sound too it but it does not over exaggerate the low end and bass frequencies like some performance cartridges tend to do. But with that being said I do not recommend using this cartridge for battle action because it does not provide enough low end for me. But it does have very clear mids and highs and sounds great in a club. It is also very light on my vinyl leaving it scratch free. The White label comes in a case and is easy to install and start using right way. It comes with a small guide to show you everything you need to know if you are a new but in my case I didn't need a manual or guide. This cartridge can also be compared to the Numark CC-1 in sound quality but not in design and feel. The sounds are very similar though as I have both of them and use both of them on a regular basis now. I do prefer the White Label from Shure of the Numark CC-1 though because of the design and feel of it. I do wish the sound had a little more low end though and could be used in a battle situation or when I am pumping up a jam packed club. I have been using this cartridge for few weeks now and so far I am very pleased.

The Pro S from Ortofon has a rubber bearing that can handle all of the scratching and back cuing easily. This company is a great company when it comes to making needles and cartridges, I have been using them for years for some of my best gear that I have. I have used this set of needles for over 5 years from the and there is nothing that I didn’t like about it. The output voltage is at 1000Hz, 5 mV and the stylus type is spherical. The frequency range is at -3 dB 20 to 20,000 Hz. Installing this needle / cartridge is easy if you know how to do it or if you want to read the manual that comes with it, it will explain everything also Ortofon has some of the best customer service I have ever experienced and they have been really helpful. When I purchased it , it came with a case, a brush and a few extra tips as well. The price was also very affordable when I purchased directly from Ortofon. I can easily see the needle on the pro S that has really helped me when doing clubs with low lighting. I can now have my needle drops exactly where I want them. I have been using this needle for a while now and many others around the same time. I can say that the Pro S from Ortofon is by far one of the best ones that I have ever purchased and used in the last 10 years. Even the replacement stylus for the Pro S is not that expensive and can be purchased from just about any music gear store as they all pretty much carry the Ortofon Concorde now. I am very pleased with this company and needle/cartridge; I will purchase from them a lot more in the future.

The Shure M78S is a wide groove phono cartridge is designed for use with wide groove 78 RPM records. This is not a cartridge that should be used for a club or battle style. I have only used this cartridge just for general listening on a Shure record player here in my house. But the N78S replacement stylus will work with just about any one of the Shure phono cartridges. This cartridge comes with mounting hardware and stylus guard. It does come with a manual just in case you need to understand how to install it but that is not that difficult. The price of this cartridge is less than 100 dollars depending on where you get it and if you are playing more 78RPM records I highly recommend this cartridge. It is very easy to remove the stylus from the cartridge but you just have to be careful, even when connecting the wires from the head shell because everything seems very delicate with this cartridge. I also recommend using the cleaning brush that comes with the M78S to clean the stylus often, and do not use any type of liquid (besides distilled water) to clean the stylus. I have damaged the styles of the M78S by using the wrong substance to clean it with and had to purchase another one. Also do not use this cartridge on a damaged record because it will damage the cartridge/stylus. This is a very good cartridge depending on the style of vinyl you own or want to listen to. Due to the fact that this cartridge is very delicate I do not recommend it when there are so many other cartridges that are similar and cost a little less with the exact same quality and sound. For those that are considering purchasing this cartridge do some research to see if it is something that you really want to invest in because Shure makes other cartridges that are similar sound and quality wise and they cost the same or even a little less.

The Shure M44-7 is a cartridge that has a high skip resistance and a solid frequency range (20 hz to 20 kHz). The performance of this cartridge was so much better than what I was expecting it to be because of the price. It is very inexpensive and I didn’t expect to get such a great quality cartridge. This cartridge does a great job on my vinyl, it does not put much wear and tear on my records at all and the sound wise, it really projects those mid and low bass tones very well. This is the perfect cartage to have for a club DJ and scratching with. I have used the M44-7 hundreds of times now and I have gone through many of them because over time they do tend to get wore down. But this needed is great for mixing and scratching and it comes with an extra set of 4 head shell wires and stylus cleaning brush. This cartridge does come with a manual but being that I have been through so many of these I had no use for the manual. For the first time user the manual could be very helpful because it is easy to understand and explains exactly how to change your cartridges and needles safely and easily. I have used so many Shure DJ products over the last ten years and they have not sold me anything that I regret. Everything has been built with the best possibly quality and the M44-7 is only 70 bucks but easily feels like it could cost twice that much with the durability and skip resistant feel to it. I also recommend the M44-7h (comes with technics headshell) and even some of the Numark cartridges are also very good. But when it comes to cartridges I tend to want quality and nobody will be the quality for the price that Shure delivers, especially when it comes to DJ gear.