TURNTABLE SYSTEM WITH VERTERE SABRE CARTRIDGE Vertere DG-1S with Sabre cartridge Naim SuperNait 3 Mission 770 speakers

Upgrading your cartridge could be the best thing that ever happened to your vinyl 

Thinking of buying a new turntable? Hold your horses, squire. There are a number of ways you can improve the sound of your turntable without scrapping the whole thing for a new deck.

Top of that list is to try swapping out your turntable’s cartridge for a new one – and here we suggest four possibles at a range of budgets that might just give a new spin on your vinyl.

For the uninitiated, your turntable’s cartridge holds the cantilever, the diamond tip of which sits in the groove and reads its tiny bumps, while the cartridge’s job is to turn this mechanical movement into an electrical signal – and of course this is fed via your phono stage and amplifier to your speakers, for the end result of the lovely warmth and clarity that vinyl replay can provide.

If you have never upgraded a turntable before, such turntable tinkering can seem daunting. But make no mistake, your choice of cartridge will make a big difference to your record playback.

Our four choices reflect a number of price points and a mix of moving-magnet and moving-coil cartridges; we have rated them on ease of set-up, performance, compatibility and build quality. There’s sure to be something here to suit your turntable and give you that upgrade in sound that your record collection deserves.

GOLDRING E3 ₨14,850

A fantastic and affordable all-rounder 

Television manufacturers churn out a multitude of new product ranges every year.