What cart for AMG Viella?

[heihei]

Having recently been blown away by a Monaco 3.0 deck equipped with an Air Tight Opus 1 cart, it has got me thinking about upgrading the AMG Teatro on my Viella (arm is the original AMG 12" and phonostage is RCM RIAA Mk2).

I found that the Monaco + Opus gave a level of detail whilst maintaining full musicality that gave a phenomenal insight into the performance, which I'm somewhat missing in my set-up. The obvious place to start considering an upgrade is the cart but as I'm pretty much a novice in this area and it seems one of, if not the hardest area to demo in any controlled way, I'm keen to hear recommendations, both for carts and possible ways of demoing.

Thanks in advance!

 

[puroagave]

The RCM looks to have plenty of gain for the Opus 1, that would be my primary concern. I have a Viella here with the turbo 12" arm and it handles my MSL Eminent cart perfectly. I don't see it being different with the Air Tight vers.

 

[Lxgreen]

I put a Koetsu Wajima on my Viella and thoroughly enjoyed it. I recently traded the Viella in for a GPA Monaco 3.0 with the optional battery. I have a Koetsu Blue Lace on the Triplaner arm. Not sure what I will get when I need cartridge since Koetsu shut down. Although I have not heard the Benz-Micro, I spoke to the AMG distributer who highly recommended it paired with the Viella

 

[heihei]

Interesting. How do you find the Monaco vs Viella?

 

[Lxgreen]

I really liked the Viella and would have kept it if I hadn’t heard the Monaco at the dealer. It mainly outperformed in the upper midrange and deep bass.

 

[sujay]

I have used 4 cartridges with my AMG Viella. The Stein music aventurin (currently on my 12 inch viella arm), etsuro Bordeaux ( on the Kuzma 4 pt 9 inch), zyx ultimate and the VDH Colibri 1 mv version. The stein music is the best overall……it’s essentially a Benz lps modified by Holger Stein with his wooden body and lacquer. I enjoy the etsuro urushi Bordeaux as well but it serves jazz and classical better than rock. I use the Burmester 088 built in MC module

Cheers

Sujay