Because of the good Stereophile review I’ve set up a Music Hall MMF-7.3 turntable at home. It comes with an Ortofon 2M Bronze, which I listened to and then put on my Quintet Bronze ( one of the new Ortofon moving coil cartridges). The 2M was good, but the Quintet was clearly better, but naturally for more money. Oh the curse of better costing more.
One point of the comparison was to see if I can sell off my old table (VPI HW19 MKII with SME 309 arm) without stepping down in sound. A comparison was necessary. Just changing the the cartridge wasn’t enough: to get the MMF 7.3 up to the old table’s sound I had to put on a better cable, use a Music Hall Aztek upgrade mat, and put the MMF 7.3 on a butcher block base. It worked very well so I may use the Music Hall from now on, though I love the workmanship of the SME arm and have a sentimental attachment to the VPI because at one point way back when I was a leading VPI dealer. Still, I prefer to demonstrate with components that I represent, so the choice will probably got to Music Hall.