TURNTABLE CARTRIDGES – Moving Magnet or Coil

Most turntables have MM cartridges in the tonearm to pickup the minute vibrations from the diamond on the tip of the stylus (needle) and every amplifier with a phono input, accommodates MMs.

But hey! There’s another type of cartridge for the more serious vinyl connoisseur, the Moving Coil (MC) cartridge.

They are much more expensive and damage the stylus, and it’s a throw-away. As well, it’s unusual to find an amplifier that will accommodate a MC, then again, users of MCs usually prefer an external MC Phono Pre-Amplifier anyway.

So what’s the difference and is the effort and cost worth it?

The fundamental difference is that in MMs, tiny magnets vibrate to reproduce the sound from the record groove, but in MCs, tiny light copper coils vibrate and when it comes to agility to navigate transients encountered in record grooves, less weight is an advantage.

The price difference is something like 10X, depending on quality.

We came across this exploded image of a MC cartridge, and it all now can make sense!

MONO – WHERE IT ALL STARTED

Not that we are into Mono setups, but we are having people asking about these Mono cartridges.

This interesting close up below is a Lyra Dorian Mono cartridge.