Technics 1200 headshell/needle/cartridge

[djproben]

In my opinion, Concordes are not worth the extra money...

Same here, I can't stand them actually. Most of the ones I've seen in actual use tend to have their finger lifts broken off, which makes them a pain to use, and I find they feel a lot flimsier to me in general. It's a personal preference though; some people swear by them. I have a set of ortofons but they are the regular ("OM") style carts so I have them on regular headshells.

[Cook]

i prefer ortofons for in-house use, purely because 447's dig a lot deeper into the record and wear em out quicker, if i was playing out though, 447's all night

[djproben]

i prefer ortofons for in-house use, purely because 447's dig a lot deeper into the record and wear em out quicker, if i was playing out though, 447's all night

I've had the exact opposite experience, for what it's worth. I think it depends which ortofons you get, but the reason I switched from Ortofons to Shure 447s (almost 15 yrs ago now) was because I was noticing FAR more record wear from the Ortofons. (they were the pink "scratch" carts; I still have them actually). I actually noticed record wear in real time when using a really poorly made childrens record from the early 1970s -- scratch back and forth over a segment and bam, added fuzz, in 4-5 movements. Didn't happen with the same record and the Shures. That's actually one of the selling points of the 447 that it has the least record wear of scratch needles. But obviously scratching is going to lead to record wear one way or another, there's no way around it; but I'd much sooner trust 447s on my precious vinyl than Ortofon carts.

[Frank112916]

M44-7's all day. I had nothing but bad experiences with the Concord DJs series. Terrible skipping when scratching, just generally bad tracking even on control Vinyl. They just didn't FEEL right on the Vinyl at all. Switched to M44-7's and...holy shit...it was like night and day. I could see and hear the difference in my scratches, back cue's, spin backs. The things just fucking stick to the vinyl like white on rice. I will never buy another set of carts. Just replace the needles every so often.