Grado Prestige Blue Standard Mount Turntable Cartridge Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I used this cartridge for about a year and came to both love it and hate it...
On the love side: The Grado Prestige Blue is a slightly warm and lively sounding and inviting musical cartridge right out of the box. One of it's strong, direct, and prominent qualities is how exceptionally well the middle and bass frequencies are presented.The mids and bass are punchy giving a very sonically centralized imaging. Some may like this and claim that the Grado is filling the gap in between the stereo sound stage (some cartridges either offer a wonderful 3- dimensional enhanced or widely dispersed stereo holographic-like imaging which others will debate and say that only makes for a very thin, hollow, or empty sounding quality). Yet, others may disagree and claim the sound stage sounds almost mono and does not reperesent a well spaced out or wide stereo soundscape! The mids give a "you are there" sonic impression and presence. Bass output is generous but not overwhelming. As for the reproduction of highs, well, certain types of music showed the cartridge's strengths and weaknesses. Overall soundlevel is great and does not require you to crank up your stereo volume whereas other cartridges in this price range tend to be weak in the output category.Playing jazz and acoustical lp selections really demonstrated what this cart can do.Instruments sounded natural. Guitar strings had that airy, plucky quality to them.The Grado works best with such type of music.Even electronic New Age music sounded organic instead of cold and electronically harsh.Another big plus is how quiet record/vinyl surface noise becomes as opposed to other cartridges that seem to amplify the drawbacks of vinyl with dust and microscopic debris in the groove walls. For under the $100 mark the Prestige Blue offers a certain amount of audiophle sound quality...
On the hate side:Loud rock music passages or fast moving modulations proved the Blue Prestige to be a weak tracker.The highs produced by electric guitars would often break up and crackle.Basically, anything with a tremendous amount of musical energy and bursts would really put the cartridge under duress or stress. The Blue Prestige lacked the ability to track the inner groove wall towards the end of a record with crystal clear precision that it offers in the beginning.Sibilants (words beginning and ending with letters s,f,z,t, and p)began to sound edgy in the last couple of tracks on a record side. Also, if you own a direct drive turntable (Technics or other brand) there is a slight audible hum as the cartridge passes close or towards the motor due to cartridge being poorly shielded. It has to do with Grado using iron in the cartridge and the magnet/magnetic electrical field produced by a direct drive motor...One final note, the Grado is not a light audiophile tracker. I learned that the best possible way to get great sound out of it was to go heavy on the tracking (2 to 2.5 g and 3 on anti-skate----this is not normally recommended as this will really eat your records and the cartridge as well)!
A better alternative in the below $100 budget audiophile segment would be the Audio Technica AT 440ML of which I've had the privilege of also owning. The qualities that the Grado Blue Prestige lacks can be easily found in the Audio Technica ! Or the Shure V15VxMR (though, there is a great significance and increase in both sound accuracy reproduction and price)!
At best, the Grado Prestige Blue is a modest and decent sounding cartridge when used with certain types of music.It's stereo soundstage representation/imaging is not as widely dispersed or enhanced as the Audio Technica's. It is also not the accurately immense sibilant and vocal tracker that the audiophile Shure V15VxMR is...However,what you may not find sonically to your liking with either the Shure or Audio Technica, you will find with the Grado and vice-versa. Don't get me wrong. The Grado Prestige Blue almost rivals these two and has it's own rewarding musical and sonic strengths ! I would have given it a 4 star, but the fact it cannot track certain consonants/sibilants with accuracy througout the entire record and requires some heavy tracking for great sound makes a great difference to this audiophile's ears !

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