High end cartridge in low end TT: worth the buy?

[adk highlander]

Hi all and especially @TLS Guy I have found a deal offering an Ortophon 2M black on a denon dp-400 TT for just 900. The cart alone usually sells for 700.

 

[Verdinut]

It isn't worth spending that much money for a cartridge to be used with the Denon DP-400. IMO, an affordable Grado cartridge should be sufficient to provide a satisfactory performance. I don't know much about the currently produced Ortofon cartridges, but their 2M Red one might do an adequate job.

It's unfortunate that Shure stopped the production of excellent affordable products. There is one of their M97xE brand new for sale on eBay. I use one in my system. It's an amazing product:

Shure M97xE HiFi Cartridge w/ Stylus MM Moving Magnet Elliptical / New Sealed | eBay

The Shure M97xE HiFi Cartridge with Stylus is a moving magnet elliptical cartridge in black color designed for Shure turntables. It is a new and sealed product, delivering high-fidelity sound reproduction for your audio setup.

www.ebay.com

However, @TLS Guy will surely be in a better position to answer you for both a turntable and a decent affordable cartridge.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi all and especially @TLS Guy I have found a deal offering an Ortophon 2M black on a denon dp-400 TT for just 900. The cart alone usually sells for 700.

The Ortofon black is a high compliance cartridge, and the closest replacement for the Shure V15xmr. I don't know that turntable, but it is semi automatic. That means the cartridge has to pull extraneous mechanisms, so depending on the extra inertia of that, a high compliance cartridge might not be a good match and conceivably could be damaging. The Ortofon Black is best matched with a low mass and low inertia tone arm. I personally have a dislike of semi automatic turntables.