I’ve gone over this in detail on other forums. I always upgraded to the 340 or 345 (w/yellow shroud styli) in all my location machines.
Today, with no original styli and variable quality generics, if you are just using the machine at home and aren’t upgrading the speakers in any way, you might as well use the cart it came with.
The red mono does suffer from noticeable dulling of the highs as the stylus nears the end of the record. This isn’t trip switch. It seems to be mostly related to the lower compliance of the styli and “pinch effect”. It occurs in both the mono spikes and offset styli.
Another thing to consider is the output of the cart and how it drives the rest of the chain. Putting a modern one in an old mono machine designed for the black or red mono cart with result in much lower level. This will affect the AGC (if used) and bass boost since the volume control will have to be turned up higher. In some cases it is easy to bypass the original preamp with one having more gain, that it what I do. But in some of the older mono amps (HFMA1 and earlier) more extensive mods are needed.
RobNYC