Turntable Wars- Reviewers take sides

johhnyb53, maybe but you forgot that mandatory $10,000 cartridge !

I'll take the Koetsu Coral Platinum cartridge thank you very much.  You can keep the rest.

http://www.needledoctor.com/Koetsu-Coralstone-Platinum-Phono-Cartridge

I'm expecting Mikey to change to a new turntable sooner rather than later (do I hear Doehmann?).
It's OK for Art Dudley to have his vintage 'off-market' esoteric equipment and write about it..... but it's poor form for the chief analogue writer of Stereophile to own equipment that the buyers of the magazine can no longer purchase...👅

Do you think so, Henry?  Back in the day, HP routinely had lots of unobtainium gear with which to play and on which he leaked incomplete reports now and then, with a vague promise of more to follow, which never happened.  If I still cared about such things, I would want my guru to be listening to the best of the best, if he had the linguistic skills and the scientific bent that would allow him to make cogent comparisons to real world (affordable) gear and to communicate his findings.  Unfortunately, most reviewers can't do those things.  Most don't have a clue.  Take a look at Peter Breuninger's video(s).  Have you ever seen more sincerity wrapped up in a look? He actually believes what he says, maybe.

Schubert: 

johhnyb53, maybe but you forgot that mandatory $10,000 cartridge!

Not really. After all, $40K total is still in the mid-pack new automobile range, and a lot less than $150K plus that same 5-figure cartridge.