An excellent moving magnet beats a poor moving coil

Moving coil is the better technology. I believe that, and the Starling I play every day keeps proving it. It still does not mean every moving coil beats every moving magnet.

Is moving coil better on paper? Yes: lighter coils, less mass, more precise tracking, better detail retrieval. Does that make any moving coil better than any moving magnet? No. There are excellent moving magnet cartridges that can beat a poor moving coil design, and the technology on the box does not tell you which one you are holding.

Price does not settle it either, and I learned that inside my own collection. The Clearaudio Performer V2 could not justify its price against my other moving magnets, mainly because of congestion in the mid-frequencies. Meanwhile the Audio-Technica VM95SH, at about $200 to $250, gave me most of what the Amethyst does at a quarter of the cost.

So when someone asks me moving magnet or moving coil, I first ask what it is going into. Moving coil needs a competent phono stage, a great turntable and a revealing system to show its advantage. Without those, an excellent moving magnet is simply the better cartridge in your chain.

Buy the cartridge, not the category. A label on a box has never played a record.