Calling all ZYX aficionados

I'll second Cello's suggestion on the UNIverse. My cartridge progression has been:

Shelter 501
Shelter 90X (audition)
Airy 3
UNIverse

The Airy 3 bested the Shelter 90X and finalized my decision to jump on the ZYX bandwagon. I had an opportunity to audition a UNIverse in my system, and there was no turning back after the first few seconds.

As good as the Airy3 is, the UNIverse is in an entirely different league. It perfectly balances all of the usual audiophile traits: transparency without glare, soundstaging without etching, PRAT and ease, detail without fatique. I could go on and on.

I have never been more satisfied with my system since owning this cartridge. I've matched it with a TriPlanar arm and an Amazon Model 1 turntable.

As far as gain is concerned, my Thor TA-2000 preamp has 20db of gain on the MC input, which is more than enough. I find that I set the volume knob about 2db louder than my CD input to get equivalent volume levels.

BTW, Mehran of SORASound is one of the nicest, service-oriented people in this hobby of ours. When you speak with him feel free to mention my name (Wayne).

.
I will second the positive experience of dealing with Mehran of Sora sound. He is as honest and fair as they come in Audio and he will bend over backwards to help you.
.
Rgds,
Larry
.

Airy 3 is the best cartridge that I've ever owned...I'm now very curious about the UNIverse.

The Airy 3 comes in low output and high output. The 0.48 mV (high output) will do just fine with your current setup. Depending on the effective mass of your Morch, you may or may not require the optional 4g silver plate for the Airy 3, it supposedly sounds better with the added weight. I believe the compliance for the Airy 3 is 15 for the horizontal and 12 for the vertical. You could always change the armwand for a perfect arm/cartridge match.

Dear Bryan: I think that you can do better with a Dynavector XV-1 than with the ZYX cartridges.
There will be no problem for your MP-3 to handle the XV-1. I think that this Dynavector design it is at the top 3-4 best cartidges ever made, the ZYX do not belongs to that small cartridges top world ( at least, not yet. ).

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul dislikes the ZYX cartridges by quite some margin as you can see from his other threads. He is right about the Dynavector being a great cartridge as per his opinion & that of several others. I do know some people who prefer other cartridges over the Dynavector. It is currently the cartridge of choice in some very high end audio systems. So is the ZYX, Koetsu Platinums and more. His assesment of the ZYX should be titled IN MY PERSONAL OPINION. There are people who love ZYX & some who don't. Lets not blow up this thread to another Raul bashing thread & just ignore his absolute style of posting.