I feel this depends on budget and quality of phono stage. I wouldn't own an MM cartridge and it wouldn't come anywhere near the last two carts I've owned in performance.
MM cartridges are hopelessly misunderstood IMO. Take a good one, put it in the right mass tonearm, and load it correctly and it should perform superbly well. There is no inherent advantage to MC, both are perfectly valid technological solutions with slightly differing strengths and weaknesses. We are just in a MC fashion place at present IMO. If one lives outside the fads of the current marketplace that can be ignored.
Rega's (MM) Exact was their flagship cart until they discovered the superior performance of MC which was borne out by the Apheta. Superb as the Exact was the Apheta bettered it in every way in a Cursa3 pre-amp (swapping the on board phono input from MM to MC). Further improvements came later with Rega's Ios phono stage.
One thing I've never really got along with is high output MC. Give me MM at half the cost or a normal MC at twice the cost any day.
Whilst I agree that you can get great results from MM, I've yet to hear one that can compete with the MCs I've got here which include Hana ML, Hana Unami Red, Lyra Titan, Audio Technica ART1000.
Funnily enough I was just thinking about my ancient DL-110 and wondering if I should spend the money to get it retipped as they're £250 new now. I remember rather liking it at the time.
I think the point is that there is significant overlap in performance between MM and MC and how they sound depends on the context. A lot of people buy relatively expensive MC carts when they could get better sound by upgrading their arms for instance. I regularly see people using expensive MC carts in an Akito for instance when a cheaper MM cart in a better arm would beat it.
You'd love my setup: DV xx2 on a shitty Technics arm (and deck).I think the point is that there is significant overlap in performance between MM and MC and how they sound depends on the context. A lot of people buy relatively expensive MC carts when they could get better sound by upgrading their arms for instance. I regularly see people using expensive MC carts in an Akito for instance when a cheaper MM cart in a better arm would beat it.
You'd love my setup: DV xx2 on a shitty Technics arm (and deck).
The main reason people buy a technics is because it's a good base.