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What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

I believe that a cartridge and a speaker, by far, contribute the most to SQ.

The two transducers in a system.

I bit the bulllet and bought a Lyra Atlas SL for $13K for my Woodsong Garrard 301 with Triplanar SE arm. I use a full function Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp. My $60K front end. It is certainly, by far, the best I have owned. I read so many comments exclaiming that Lyra as among the best. I had to wait 6 months to get it. But the improvement over my excellent $3K Mayijima Shilabi was spectacular-putting it mildly.

I recently heard a demo of much more pricy system using a $25K cartridge. Seemed to be the most expensive cartridge made. Don’t recall the name.

For sure, the amount of detail was something I never heard. To hear a timpani sound like the real thing was incredible. And so much more! 
This got me thinking of what could be possible with a different kind of cartridge than a moving coil. That is, a moving iron.

I have heard so much about the late Decca London Reference. A MI and a very different take from a MC. Could it be better? The World’s Best? No longer made.

However Grado has been making MI cartridges for decades. Even though they hold the patent for the MC. Recently, Grado came out with their assault on “The World’s Best”. At least their best effort. At $12K the Epoch 3. I bought one and have been using it now for about two weeks replacing my Lyra. There is no question that the Atlas SL is a fabulous cartridge. But the Epoch is even better. Overall, it’s SQ is the closest to real I have heard. To begin, putting the stylus down on the run in grove there is dead silence. As well as the groves between cuts. This silence is indicative of the purity of the music content. Everything I have read about it is true. IME, the comment of one reviewer, “The World’s Best”, may be true.
 

 

mglik
dover
2,243 posts
 

@richardkrebs 

As can be seen from the plots, they are sensitive to loading on their primary and secondary windings, including capacitance. Get it wrong and their frequency response and phase curves aren't pretty. But get it right and they are pretty darn good. 

So with the Soundsmith you have a cartridge that is sensitive to loading and transformers can be adversely affected when loading ( either primary or secondary or both ). It's a recipe for disaster unless you get a transformer built specifically for the cartridge and you know your targets. 

And then there are the colourations ( which you ignored ).

In my case I have a custom built moving coil step up that is current based ( designed and hand built by a cartridge designer ) which does not have these issues, but more importantly has much higher resolution than any transformer I have tried thus far - and this includes some of the most highly regarded transformers ever made. Obviously the current based step up is unlikely to work with the Soundsmith MI's and I am not prepared to lower the resolution of my system to accommodate one cartridge.

 

richardkrebs
422 posts
 

Dover

The point I was making is that, contrary to what you said, properly set up SUTs do not exhibit problematic phase errors. Nothing more, nothing less 

cheers 

lewm
13,014 posts
 

For whomever it was that was dissatisfied with the Sussuro loaded at 800 ohms, I strongly recommend you try 47K ohms and then move down in increments. It might be that the Sussuro will bloom at higher load resistance. Although it has a low internal resistance (10 ohms, I think) it like all MI types has inductance much higher than an LOMC with similar voltage output and internal R, which also is why it is problematic to match it with any SUT.

dogberry
647 posts
 

If you mean me, @lewm , I think it is at its best at 800Ω. I had previously tried it as an MM input, with the volume cranked up and it didn't matter what the capacitative load was set at. Turns out one should RTFM.

Even set as an MC input, with some fiddling with the resistive loading, it still doesn't match the sheer joy of the Nagaoka MP-500. It seems like we don't quite know what we're about with MI cartridges that have cantilevers just yet.

lewm
13,014 posts
 

doggie, You did not mention whether you ever went ABOVE 800 ohms for load R.  Into an MM input, the problem may well have been lack of gain, rather than the load resistance.  It would be worthwhile to try a high load resistance, e.g., 47K ohms WITH gain that is sufficient for its very low output (preferably 65db or more but maybe a bit less depending upon the gain of your linestage, if any), if you own a phono stage capable of both.  As you know, MI cartridges are not new.  B&O, Acutex, Nagaoka, Grado, and a few others, not to mention Decca, have been making them for decades.  What is new about some of the SoundSmith models (and the new Grados) is their low output.  Ideally you want a high gain phono stage AND a high load resistance, or much higher than 800 ohms, anyway.  I've gotta believe you could get more out of your Sussuro. 

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