Ah yes, phono cartridges. Remember your first Shure cartridge way back when. Just like your first girlfriend, you never forget your first phono cartridge (Shure M91ED I miss you). Why the love affair? It’s simple: it is the device that turns your records into music. If you remember the music, you will remember the cartridge. Being romantic is fun, but phono cartridges are serious business. Every cartridge performs differently, and each one requires that it be properly matched to the tonearm and table. Although we have been going on about our love affair with our first cartridges, this was only possible because our little gems were put into a tonearm that mated nicely with the cartridge. Perhaps another trip down memory lane will help showcase this. I left my Shure 91ED for an Empire 681EEE. Why? Who knows, perhaps I felt spending more on a cartridge would make me happier. But the truth was that I never enjoyed that cartridge and eventually came back to my Shure and begged for forgiveness. My turntable set-up just wasn’t right for the Empire cartridge. It is that simple and it taught me a valuable lesson: money doesn’t mean happiness and to always take everything into account when buying a phono cartridge.