Hear my Cartridges....🎶

I prefer the DD rendition of both pieces. Admittedly, there is a little more euphony with the Raven but I prefer the cleaner and crisper Victor. Frogman’s astute observation is of note too. I wonder if this is why the LDR never quite sounded 100% on the Raven-something I have pointed out before. Interesting...

Also interesting because I never noticed the Raven’s faster speed in prior comparisons.  Did something change?  One semitone equals a big difference in speed; about 6%! 

Welcome Frogman...and thank you for the kind words re my system...
It's really appreciated 🤩
I've been thinking a lot about you since this crisis has hit...
Being a professional musician, I feared that your livelihood had been guillotined overnight..?
I sincerely hope that you are coping and are in line for the Government 'Bail-Out' that others in the States will receive?

As usual....your 'Golden Ears' are spot-on 👂
I don't know how it happened, but I checked the speeds using the Timeline and they were indeed 'bizarre' 🥴 Both 33.33 and 45 RPM.
As I had just re-set them both recently, this was a shock 🤔
I will keep a careful eye (and ear) on them for the immediate future...

I will re-record this afternoon, with the adjusted speed.
Will be interesting...

Also interesting is the verdict of Noromance with which I agree....
However, it's puzzling how he associates his preferences with the DD Turntable rather than the cartridge...?
And hopefully....on the adjusted recordings, we can all hear the true cartridge comparisons?

Regards to you both 🤗

OK......let’s try again 🤪

AS PALLADIAN LOMC CARTRIDGE

VINTAGE VICTOR X-1II MM CARTRIDGE

VINTAGE VICTOR X-1II MM CARTRIDGE

AS PALLADIAN LOMC CARTRIDGE

Aah, much better! Thank you. And, thank you for your concern. The pandemic has ground all live performance to a halt and, unfortunately, I’m afraid that my industry will be one of the last to return to "normal". My family and I are fine in all respects though and we left NYC for our place in upstate NY where we are with nature and no neighbors nearby. I’m enjoying having some down time; wish circumstances were different.

I don’t have my Stax headphone ("earspeakers" 😏) setup up here, but do have a system more modest than my all tube/electrostatics system downstate. Meitner ss amplification (PA6i/MTR101 monos), Totem floorstanders, REL sub and Nordost cabling. I listened on that system as well as Panasonic earbuds with iPad as source for both. My impressions were consistent both ways.

As expected, great sound from both cartridges. However, my preference is not for the Victor mm. Differences were all relatively subtle, but obvious and go to my personal sonic priorities of truthfulness in timbre and tonality and clarity of musical interaction above all else.

The sound with the Victor mm had the advantage of the dd table’s rock solid speed stability. The Raven’s is very good, but a very subtle pitch waver could still be heard on sustained piano notes; and would probably not be noticed if not comparing to the Victor. Interestingly, this seemed less obvious than when the Raven was running fast. Again, very subtle. That was about the only area in which, for me, the sound with the Victor mm was superior.

In comparison to the Palladian the Victor sounds a little thick and slightly covered sounding in the highs. This causes the piano’s left hand low register passages to sound a little muddled compared to the Palladian’s ability to let one hear the vibrating piano stings more clearly and with better defined pitch (1:15+/-). The end result is that more subtle musical detail and interaction is heard with the Palladian. The Palladian reveals more of the sound of rosin on string than the Victor does and the timbre is more consistent from low register to high register. With the Victor, violin sounds a little covered as does the piano which sounds as if the lid is closed as opposed to open as with the Palladian. I suspect that in the context of a system voiced to the hot side of neutral the Palladian could make the violin sound a little steely. An interesting effect which I think is the result of the extra thickness in the sound of the Victor is that when the violin plays forte, its image in the soundstage gets larger causing the spatial relationship between violin and piano to change: the violin ends up sounding much larger than the piano. The Palladian doesn’t exibit this and the relationship remains closer to what one years when the music is not as loud. At first I thought that the two selections were not level matched with the Victor being slightly louder, but this may be the result of the previous observation.

Surprisingly, a lot of the above was even more obvious in the Armatrading selection (loved it, btw).

Overall, the vintage Victor mm sounds....a little vintage. The Palladian doesn’t sound as romantic and as spatially enveloping as the Victor does; but, for me, the sounds it makes sound less like a recording. A sound that is a little cleaner overall while the Victor seems to have a subtle texture in the "air" around the instruments. Needless to say, it is incredible that a vintage cartridge can sound so good for so much less money than something like the Palladian; and, of course, all this based on my personal preferences only.

As always, a treat to have a chance to hear and compare such great cartridges.

Thanks and regards.