ZYX Ultimate with carbon fiber cantilevers -- listener reviews?

Unchilled, I am currently listening to a Universe that I bought with only 10-20 hours on it for only $2000.  Such bargains are out there if you are patient; this one was on Audiogon, and I am a longtime friend of the seller, albeit we live about 10,000 miles apart.  Still, knowing him as I do gave me the courage to buy used.  Mehran occasionally has "factory reconditioned" Universes (the original, like mine) to sell; I don't know what he typically charges for them, but reconditioned Universe II's are close to $5K, which is a bit rich for my blood, just on general principles.

@unchilled  I've owned low output copper Premium 4D with silver base for some time, it was step-up from my silver coil Zyx Airy. On Live18 shell with dedicated pre-preamp (Zyx CPP-1) they were good on Technics EPA-100 tonearm. But after a few years of hardcore digging for vintage MM and MC i must say that Zyx was not my favorite cartridge, but it was the most expensive cartridge i have ever owned. So its not nescessary to pay more than $3500 for a cartridge if you're not sure it is "your sound". Not to mension all those vintage cartridges available 10 times cheaper in price, including vintage MMs to blow your mind.  

I still love Zyx pre-preamp CPP-1, haven't used for a while, but last night connected my 0.2mv Argent MC110 via Zyx CPP-1 pre-preamp to JLTi phono stage it was breathtakingly good.    

Hi Lewm and chakster,
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Harvey

I have a r100 ultimate I'm going to try soon... will report in with my impressions in due course 

Mehran swears it bests the old Yatra and Fuji...  I won't be able to establish that but I'll consider it against my AT Art 9 and Koetsu Black...

@jjss49 i hope you know than R100 is an old model, lower that R1000 Airy 3 and way different from the Premium 4D. I doubt it can beat the ART-9, even my ART-2000 was as good or even better than more expensive R1000 Airy3. instead of the old ZYX you can also try vintage Monster Cable cartridges designed by Nakatsuka San. Even ADC-TRX MM was Nakatsuka San's design.