This topic has, I'm sure, been visited before. My Garrard 1000 is in a mint mid-60s console that looks absolutely beautiful. The Ronnette ceramic cartridge currently installed works fine, but can be distorted at times, abd I'm keen to test it with a magnetic cartridge. The Ronnette is held in with two screws that look about 1/2" apart, so I'm hoping I can position a suitable magnetic cartridge in there and, of course, install a phono preamp section which will not be a problem. My question is, are there any recommendations for a suitable (and available) mag cartridge? The tracking force on the tome arm is adjustable via a spring, but I'm happy to have a mag cartridge with 3g or more. I'm planning to also renovate or rebuild the amplifier so that the unit sounds as good as it looks. Any hints or advice? Cheers.

I see that the Garrard 1000 was originally equipped with Astatic 140d ceramic cartridge and Astatic N60 stylus. Those are still available. Regarding a magnetic replacement, you could contact this mob and ask what they would suggest:

https://www.canadianastatic.com/

A magnetic cartridge would require a preamp to bring the level up to the ceramic cartridge level.
Magnetic cartridges typically put out about 3-4 millivolts whereas a ceramic could be 200 millivolts or more.
Also the tracking force would need to be much less than a ceramic, say 3-4 grams which could be difficult for old Garrard arm to cope with.
Finding a suitable ceramic would be the best option I think.

The Garrard 1000 has a spring in the tonearm with which I can vary the tracking force. At the moment it's at 3.5g, but I can make it lighter. I guess I'll give it a go and report back with the results. Also, you can get magnetic carts designed to track at 3-5g. I'm more worried about the possibility of magnetic interference from the motor resulting in hum.

You can buy quite cheaply a phono to aux level preamp on ebay.
Chinese of course but probably of ample quality for your needs.
They run off a 12V plugpack so powering it would be easy.
It will give better fidelity than a ceramic cartridge so if the Garrard arm can cope it could be a good alternative.

I've made a couple of phono preamps myself, one valve and one solid state. The Garrard tracking force is spring adjustable from almost zero to over 5 grams. I'm using a cartridge from a Sony turntable that I scored from the curbside, at 2.5g. It could be an AT3600L Have already been able to install the cartridge by making an adapter from aluminium. Waiting till tomorrow to apply power and do a test. I'm hoping that there'll be no hum from the motor making itself felt in the signal.

I installed the magnetic cartridge in the headshell, which I modified in a reversible way, in order to preserve the vintage specs. With a solid state phono preamp made from a Dick Smith kit years ago the improvement is dramatic. The only issue is that the amplifier was clearly voiced with the original cartridge in mind, so the bass is a tiny bit boomy. I'm planning perhaps a simple tone control circuit after the phono preamp to tweak the sound. All concealed in the cabinet of course.

People use the Shure m3d cartridge which is a magnetic cartridge designed in about 1960 and run until the late 70s,. It's only about 7mv so a pre amp is needed , the tracking weight for a m3d is 3 to 5 gram and the md7 can be used also if it's a stacker. Most of the Garrard turn tables people have had a crack at running a magnetic on were earlier than your model. It can be done with a m3d Shure , the problem is the cost , I classic m3d Shure will cost about $200 to 350, they are flavour of the month and every body wants them
The reason people use the classic old Shure cartridges as opposed to a more modern magnetic cartridge is because they are robust and closer suited to a rougher running old turntable than a very modern magnetic.
I toy with these a fair bit, it's the cost that's the killer. I'm not a fan of ceramic even on old turntables . Most old Garrard turntables can run at a good tracking weight if done right and the tracking weight can do more damage if it's too light too! . If you look around the. Forums on the net you will many guys having a go at this and some have success...... Pete

The trap for magnetic cartridges is how they are applied. The old ones had enough oomph to drive the first audio and there were impedance matching circuits & attenuators on some, before the valve.

Where things can go very much awry is how they are connected to the grid or in some cases cathode. They are coils and need to be DC blocked otherwise run as a grounded grid, or they will short out the bias. Real fun if its a back biased set. In a Philips I have here the magnetic PU is floating above ground & the set is back biased.

Marc