First, thank you again for what has been a very interesting thread. A great and rare opportunity to hear so many great cartridges.
I think your motivation for starting this thread is commendable. I canāt really comment on whether, in absolute terms, you met all your goals since I think that those are very personal calls. I think your first premise that MCās are not necessarily better than MMās was proven (again) handily. The top cartridges that you have treated us to are at an extremely high level of sonic excellence. Still, there remain differences between them that in the context of a particular system may swing our preference for one over the other because one moves the overall sound of a system a little closer to, not away from, our sense of what the sound of the real thing is. As with so many things in our hobby context is, if not everything, extremely important. I donāt know how one attaches a ācorrectā or āfairā cost to a cartridge that pushes the overall sound of a particular system a step closer to that sense of what reality is in a sonic area of personal priority.
For me, this thread has made clearer two things in particular. Just how much musical detail and nuance can be heard in a YouTube download recorded using rudimentary and portable recording gear was a big surprise. Then, the unexpected amount of detail reinforced and confirmed for me what I have always felt about MMās vs MCās.
i know some disagree with this premise, but I have always felt that in the area of tonality and timbre each type has, in a very fundamental way, a sound and character, or aspects of those, that carries to just about every cartridge of the same type that I have heard; a family sound. However, each does it by deviating from MY sense of what tonal truth is by going in opposite directions. My impressions of the Victor vs the Palladian confirmed once again why I feel this way.
The Victor sounds gorgeous. Maybe a little too gorgeous? The violin sounds just amazing. What a fantastic recording! Your system sounds particularly great with that record. However, there is a plummy character in the overall sound and a little bit of a ācupped hands around mouthā character in the frequency range of the woodwinds. The plummy character makes the harpās lower strings too round and thick, and the upper strings donāt have as much of the characteristic gentle incisiveness and snap that is evident with the Palladian.
The Palladian swings a little the other way. It sounds a little dry. But, it sounds more linear without the excess in the lower mids and I would say that it swings toward the dry less so than the Victor swings toward the beautifully plummy. The main reason that I like the Decca so much is that, for me, it seems to strike a tonal balance between the two. As they say, āthe truth is usually somewhere in the middleā. The sound staging seems amazing with the Victor. However, while the Palladianās individual images sound smaller, they seem more correctly proportioned (size wise) relative to each other and better organized within the soundstage.
A surprise was that these characteristics were even more evident on the Brubeck clip. The generous lower mids and below character of the Victor made the pianoās left hand too full and thick robbing the piano of a little bit of its percussive role in the music. The absence of that extra fullness with the Palladian makes the musical flow a little more lithe. Paul Desmondās is one my very favorite alto saxophone sounds. I have heard just about everything that he has recorded and I feel I have a pretty good idea of what his sound was. He famously said, when asked how he got that sound, that he wanted to sound ālike a dry martiniā. Great analogy that I get. With the Victor his tone is a little too wet. With the Palladian it sounds closer to real with the distinctive dryness as well as a little bit of brass sheen that seems totally absent with the Victor. Tonally, the Palladian sounds a little less like a recording than the Victor does.
Would I pay $10,000 for the Palladian? Of course not, I could live more than happily with the Victor. The differences are subtle and the Victor can sound absolutely gorgeous. But, .....
I hope none of my comments come across as attempting to dispute any of your premises. Just personal impressions based on my own preferences and biases. All very interesting and thank you again for one of the most interesting threads on Agon.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I think your motivation for starting this thread is commendable. I canāt really comment on whether, in absolute terms, you met all your goals since I think that those are very personal calls. I think your first premise that MCās are not necessarily better than MMās was proven (again) handily. The top cartridges that you have treated us to are at an extremely high level of sonic excellence. Still, there remain differences between them that in the context of a particular system may swing our preference for one over the other because one moves the overall sound of a system a little closer to, not away from, our sense of what the sound of the real thing is. As with so many things in our hobby context is, if not everything, extremely important. I donāt know how one attaches a ācorrectā or āfairā cost to a cartridge that pushes the overall sound of a particular system a step closer to that sense of what reality is in a sonic area of personal priority.
For me, this thread has made clearer two things in particular. Just how much musical detail and nuance can be heard in a YouTube download recorded using rudimentary and portable recording gear was a big surprise. Then, the unexpected amount of detail reinforced and confirmed for me what I have always felt about MMās vs MCās.
i know some disagree with this premise, but I have always felt that in the area of tonality and timbre each type has, in a very fundamental way, a sound and character, or aspects of those, that carries to just about every cartridge of the same type that I have heard; a family sound. However, each does it by deviating from MY sense of what tonal truth is by going in opposite directions. My impressions of the Victor vs the Palladian confirmed once again why I feel this way.
The Victor sounds gorgeous. Maybe a little too gorgeous? The violin sounds just amazing. What a fantastic recording! Your system sounds particularly great with that record. However, there is a plummy character in the overall sound and a little bit of a ācupped hands around mouthā character in the frequency range of the woodwinds. The plummy character makes the harpās lower strings too round and thick, and the upper strings donāt have as much of the characteristic gentle incisiveness and snap that is evident with the Palladian.
The Palladian swings a little the other way. It sounds a little dry. But, it sounds more linear without the excess in the lower mids and I would say that it swings toward the dry less so than the Victor swings toward the beautifully plummy. The main reason that I like the Decca so much is that, for me, it seems to strike a tonal balance between the two. As they say, āthe truth is usually somewhere in the middleā. The sound staging seems amazing with the Victor. However, while the Palladianās individual images sound smaller, they seem more correctly proportioned (size wise) relative to each other and better organized within the soundstage.
A surprise was that these characteristics were even more evident on the Brubeck clip. The generous lower mids and below character of the Victor made the pianoās left hand too full and thick robbing the piano of a little bit of its percussive role in the music. The absence of that extra fullness with the Palladian makes the musical flow a little more lithe. Paul Desmondās is one my very favorite alto saxophone sounds. I have heard just about everything that he has recorded and I feel I have a pretty good idea of what his sound was. He famously said, when asked how he got that sound, that he wanted to sound ālike a dry martiniā. Great analogy that I get. With the Victor his tone is a little too wet. With the Palladian it sounds closer to real with the distinctive dryness as well as a little bit of brass sheen that seems totally absent with the Victor. Tonally, the Palladian sounds a little less like a recording than the Victor does.
Would I pay $10,000 for the Palladian? Of course not, I could live more than happily with the Victor. The differences are subtle and the Victor can sound absolutely gorgeous. But, .....
I hope none of my comments come across as attempting to dispute any of your premises. Just personal impressions based on my own preferences and biases. All very interesting and thank you again for one of the most interesting threads on Agon.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!