Fidelity Research FR-64 vs. FR-54

Raul
My MC pre eschews the use of circuit boards, has no wiring, every component is soldered to the other components in free space ( in a 3 dimensional array to minimise component interaction as is done in the Mares Connoisseur ).
For your next build you might want to look at eliminating the circuit boards, and eliminate the resonant and hystereses inducing metal chassis, and all switches in the signal path. If your circuit is as good as you claim, then eliminating the circuit boards, resonant chassis and switches should be an audible improvement of a significant margin.

The answer to your question is yes, the same Reto Andreoli that builds cartridges selling up to $50k and for which he has an 18 month waiting list. Personally I don't use his cartridge but he has some interesting ideas on cartridge tracking/cantilever/stylus profile and the issues of how to minimise distortion on playback. He is a fan of the cantileverless Ikeda MC that I use which is very close to emulating the cutter head action in playback resulting in very low mechanical distortion and phase anomalies on playback.  

Raul, My source for the notion that you use the MAT02 in your preamplifier is.... you.  You told me this in a personal email a few years ago.  In the same email, you in effect congratulated me for choosing it. Or perhaps I misunderstood you; perhaps you just meant that you liked the MAT02 in general and did not mean to imply that you used it in the preamp. It doesn't really matter to me. I did not choose it at random; I chose it based on direct personal advice from Allen Wright, who told me he would use it in his RTP3C, if cost and availability were no problem.  (Read his book "The Preamplifier Cookbook"; the MAT02 is now out of production, so far as I know.) If I am wrong in my thinking that you use the MAT02, thanks for the correction.  It seems you are reluctant to divulge just what transistor you do use in your unit, but isn't the term "discrete bipolar" an oxymoron?  The MAT02 and 03 are "bipolar" in that each contains two matched devices in one shell.  If you use discretes, one for each phase, then you don't use a bipolar.  Since the matching of the two halves in the MAT02 and like bipolar devices is fantastically tight, far tighter than one can get with matching tubes, I don't know what you gain by using discretes, except aggravation trying to match them.  But that's your business and your preference.

In mentioning the CTC Blowtorch, Vendetta, and MFA Luminescence (which I think is over-rated by modern standards), I was only trying to side with you, by suggesting that your Phonolinepreamp may eventually assume similar long term "status", and therefore enhanced value, among audio aficionados, who are nothing if not snobbish when it comes to expensive yet unobtainable gear.  I was not at all implying that your preamp is worse, or better, than any of the above.

And finally, neither you nor I nor anyone else can prove by winning some sort of verbal debate that one piece of equipment is better or worse than another.  Words don't suffice.  And, whether you like it or not, emotion plays a huge role in how one chooses one's components.

Nandric,
I'm not convinced "we all think in the same way". My professional life includes overhauling businesses and business processes. Believe me, one of the most powerful ways of removing "blockages" in businesses is by showing people how to think differently and empowering them.

Notwithstanding, I have no dispute with Raul other than I object to his claim that he has superior listening capability "AHEE" to everyone else on this forum. Raul cannot possibly know this for certain unless he has personally met everyone and experienced many listening sessions with every single person on this forum. Clearly that is not the case.

Similarly, Rauls claims that  his audio system has lower distortion than every other system on this forum cannot be proven. Now here I am able to critique this premise on the basis of shared experiences. I own or have listened to extensively many of the cartridges, arms and turntables that Raul has reviewed on this forum and from those reviews I have been able to discern quite clearly that his system is low resolution as far as analogue goes. Even if we assume he has the best phono stage in the world, there are failings to extract the best from his cartridges. In my view the issue probably lies in his choice of turntables and arms. In some instances it may be that his cartridges have been purchased second hand or are 30 years old and are not performing to the standard that they left the factory. Poor set up on his part is another possibility - I have already posted links to photos that show Raul set his Dynavector Nova 13 ( which by the way had been butchered with a replacement cantilever nothing like the original ) had been mounted with the headshell upside down. 
Link to Rauls butchered Dynavector Nova 13D compared to my own factory rebuilt specimen - look that the cantilevers in the photo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vveRGz-s4g
Link to Rauls Dyanvector Nova 13D mounted the wrong way up in its custom headhsell -  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4o-imxZHS8     
For someone who claims to be a more knowledgeable than everyone else on this forum this lack of understanding on how to set a cartridge up properly as evidenced in the photos above is enlightening.

Cheers. 
 

Dear @lewm : You only see my posts but don't really " read " it:


"""  urious that you named the MAT02 and totally " weird " that you think I’m used in the Essential.

That matched bipolar pairs along the MAT03 were used in the late 80’s by ML and even that are good devices are not what we were looking in our near " perfect " Essential design and that’s why we took a very hard very hard task to choose individual discrete bipolars and not only that but we choosed/tested diferent manufacturers where even that almost all were made it the same did not sounds exactly the same. After the choice the hardest task was to have matched pairs that we can’t do it by our self, this task was responsability of a México University. No, not all similar bipolars sounds the same. Yes, it's more easy to handkle and to design a circuit with MAT kind of devices than single discrete bipolars, remember that single discrete bipolars has not the very high gain in the MATs and that was an additional issue to solve in the Essential design. """

"""  we don’t use it any single chips in the circuit not even the discrete ones but the B&B buffer """


R.