My new Soundsmith Straingauge cartridge

Spirit, I would say that I am a convert away from belt-drive and that my personal experience with my Lenco is very favorable indeed. I love it. Apart from the Lenco, all my other (four) turntables are direct-drive. I confess I do have some doubts/questions about rim-drive, as it is implemented in your type of tt, using an external motor with a small diameter drive wheel that makes contact with the platter via O-rings. I would never say that that is not a good idea, but I would want to audition it for myself to see how it compares to what I've gotten used to. (I think the Trans-fi set-up is superior to the rim-drive of TT Weights and VPI, however.) As you know, on the Trans-fi Terminator, I am a big fan, from afar so far. It would be my choice among SL tonearms, if I were willing to put up with pumps and such.

Cfluxa, why would you say that the SG is "solid-statey"? It depends upon mechanical energy induced into the mechanism via a stylus. To me, that's analogue. Maybe you refer to the SG power supplies?

Lew - I am referring simply to the fact that the strain gauge is using solid-state amplification rather than tube amplification. Of course, that doesn't get in the way of it being analogue.

An interesting line from Peter in a 2010 Audio Asylum post:

"While there is now some interest again in this technology, there are those who will DIY with older cartridges, and even now some with triode designs. I have opted to produce solid state circuitry for the SG simply becaue it allows fast, ultra linear performance. While I am not a tube bigot, I must point out that non-linearities from such are artifacts, and that is not the way I wanted to start out with my new cartridge. Not that artifacts are "bad"....but they are artifacts none the less. I have seen no distortion figures posted for these circuits; nor a square wave response into a typical load. I hope to see some real techincal work in this area someday beyond just tube circuitry for the sake of tube circuitry."

As I stated before, my main concern is that the sound of the SG might retain some solid-state characteristics that don't go over well with me. Based on what I'm reading from Spirit and others, it does seem that worries about bleached tonal colors, less-than-silky transients and a lack of dimensionality are hopefully misplaced.

I still do wonder, however, whether there's a bias away from rich tonal colors, and whether, for example, I might feel the need to replace my Yamamoto 45 amp with a 300B after dropping in the strain gauge, a bid to get that extra iota of second-order harmonic development that might be lacking. I'm not a fanatic about the latter, mind you, but I do prefer Technicolor to black-and-white.

I have been following the soundsmith strainguage threads lately. I have never heard one but from what I have read my take on the sonic quality is the following. I suspect the sonic signature can be a function of (dependent on) three aspects (RIAA/equalization aspects aside:

1) Trackability of the grooves
2) Responsiveness of the strainguage system
3) The characteristics of the power supply

Various cartridges (SG, MI, MM, MC) have better or worse performance in this area. Apparently the low mass nature of the SG is superior to others. I suspect this is one aspect to how much detail it retrieves.

Seemingly the SG system is more responsive, than "slower" coil/mass based cartridges. I suspect this I what makes this cartridge very quick and dynamic. Of course I believe the trackability helps in this regard as well.

Since the SS power supply is directly in the signal path I suspect the SS power supply could be leading to what some regard as a lack of harmonic richness or texture.

In my experience between tubes and SS, generally speaking, is that tubes seem to more easily provide this. Is it the distortion or different harmonics I don't know....that has been debated for years! However, in my limited experience comparing the tube phono/preamp stage I normally use versus as good SS preamp I tried is that the SS phono had many of the qualities some people like about the SG but lacked in the texture department. Is it a distortion or not I can't say, but in the end it just sounded more right to me.

I do believe that there are some tube systems that sound horrible and that there are some SS that have great texture. As Spirit has tried a battery power supply to feed the SG unit and found improved performance in the areas of harmonic signature and texture, I suspect that improvements by SS in their power supply system could go a long way in improving these aspects.

From am marketing standpoint, it would seem to be a brilliant idea for SS to offer either a solid state option or tube-based option to drive the SG. More importantly, they should experiment with the SS power supply to see if they can ameliorate some of these texture. Black gate caps? regulation? I don't know but since there are some SS units which go a long way to sounding texturally real, I suspect there is more potential.

Imagine having all of the strengths of the SG but addressing what others view as the principle debated shortcoming?

Cheers,

Andrew

Just a few thoughts, gentlemen. Watts, I'm not qualified to answer your qs, so will leave to others. Peter is not open to batt psu, or tube psu options for his SG. This is a shame, since my batt psu is pushing the cart to new heights of greatness esp re airy highs, and transparent mids.
Re tube options, the Straingauge tech has been around for a long time, and Dave Slagle of Emia fame has a bespoke tube psu for his NOS Panasonic Straingauges, and it may be compatible for Peter's current version. Beyond this I don't know too much, but the options are out there.

Spirit - is the stock PSU that you replaced with the Red Wine now collecting dust? Is it not an option to buy the SG without a PSU?