Cartridge for an Empire Troubador 598

[goodguy]

Hello,

I recently won an auction for an Empire Troubador 598 III turntable and it has a B&O MC20e installed. From what I understand, it's really a quad cartridge.

I'm assuming that this cartridge is not quite the right one for the application and was wondering what other cartridges should I be looking at and hopefully your suggestions will be under $200

I will still consider suggestions for those over $200. My Yamaha C-60 does have a selection for a MC cartridge.

[euclid]

The biggest question is what the effective mass fo the tone arm is.

If it is a high mass tone arm, a low compliance, higher tracking force cartridge will work best but will cause greater record wear due to the higher force on the stylus.

If the arm is has low effective mass then almost any of the high compliance, low tracking force cartridges will work fine. Which one is best is a matter of the sound that you like, the input capacitance and resistance of your phono stage, and the capacatance of the wiring.

There have been many discussions on what is the best cartridge for different arms, preamps, and turntables. Try browsing or searching old posts. There are a lot of opinions.

I mounted a SME 3009 Series 2 Improved arm on my Empire 298 to replace the original high mass Empire arm on that turntable but it was not easy. The 598 is a newer model so the arm may not be nearly so massive.