if you´re using a conical stylus ... is pretty standard.
Advanced stylus profiles get higher frequencies, but also they need more care in the setup process (tonearm height, azimuth, etc.) There´s no free lunch in audio
Well - sort of - with a conical you still get a signal at higher frequencies, it's just mostly distortion!
Much of the F/R response of a cartridge, any cartridge, is driven by the cantilever resonance... fat/heavy cantilevers can have a resonance as low as 8kHz to 10kHz - better ones go up to around 15khz or 16kHz - and excellent low mass ones can push the resonance up well beyond hearing (30Khz +)
With most MM's the cantilever resonance ( a standard bell shaped boost curve of signal - along with matching rise in distortion) is balanced by a filter generated by the combination of the cartridge inductance, and load impedance and capacitance.... hence the need for different cartridges with different styli (cantilevers!) to have differing loading to maintain a flat frequency response... alternatively the cartridge designers can match a different cartridge body with higher or lower inductance - to better match the differing stylus....
The finer side radius of elipticals and line contact designs, allow them to accurately read the vinyl sidewall at frequencies above 12kHz (I would have to look it up to work out what radius limits at what frequency... ) - but there is a difference between accurate reproduction of the recording, and presence of signal coming out of cartridge.... yes a conical/spherical will still provide output at higher frequencies - but typically, their loading is designed to roll off the high end, as most of that high end, is pure distortion.
And yes what people don't think about, is that what is happening at those high frequencies, is that the conical stylus is mistracking, resulting in increased wear on the record, and effectively it is wearing away those same high frequencies it cannot reproduce... given enough plays with a conical, an eliptical will be unable to then retrieve that information - it has been worn away. - But a line contact, due to reading the side wall both above and below the contact patch of a conical or eliptical stylus, will often read the undamaged, virgin vinyl.... also due to its extended contact patch, the line contact needle will reduce wear, as it's tracking force is spread over a substantially larger surface area - so it mistracks less, reduces wear, and both needle and vinyl last much longer (4x longer as a minimum).
