The pickups I'm thinking of have a rising top and I believe a fairly substantial output and in my experience, output alone up top can upset some phono stages even before distortion due to basic diamond profiles comes into it. Some milder pickups have less top response regardless of diamond quality fitted (worst cases these days have to be the home made Rega Elys 2 and Exact 2 - ghastly things to me and dull/soggy sounding). Heck, even the rather limited AT91 based Rega Carbon sounds better to me and that's with a bog standard bonded conical tip, albeit nicely formed and polished if mine is anything to go by (although a Thakker EPO E stylus (DN251E basically) lifts it to AT95E level, so take of that whatever you want
).