Hear my Cartridges....🎶
It's encouraging to hear these differing points of view...and I thank you all.....🤗 The comments of Michelle and @noromance are particularly gratifying because, before recording this 'Shootout', I had been happily listening to the Victor Z1/SAS and considered it one of the better MMs in my collection. After the rather negative comments from @frogman and @dover for my Victor X1/II however......I began to doubt my judgement and feared that the Z1/SAS might project some of the same 'house' sound as its more glorified 'brother' 🥴 What a worthwhile 'shootout' this has turned out to be.....👍 Thanks again. |
Can you actually hear the differences between cantilever materials....?That's a question some have asked me. My answer.......I'm not sure 🤔 The reason I'm regularly asked this question is because I've often written that I prefer Beryllium to all other materials. This is no accident..... Over the last 42 years....but particularly the past 15....I have discovered that the majority of the 80+ cartridges (I have owned and heard in my system) that I LOVE.....seem to share Beryllium as their only common feature. On the other hand.....the cartridges that disappoint me the most, seem to share Boron as their only common feature. Aluminium cantilevers sound fine as do Sapphire and Ruby. Recently I discovered that the diamond cantilever on my Sony XL-88D sounds stunning, but there is a 'Control Group' of only one for any meaningful conclusions on this material 💍 This seems to indicate that I can certainly hear the differences in cantilever materials...... But that's not true 🤥 There's no way I can hear the differences in side-by-side A-B Tests and I've written on THAT So it seems like most things in High-End Audio.....only long-term listening can be relied on, to separate the 'wheat from the chaff' 👂 But as this Thread had regularly demonstrated....I don't have the 'Golden Ears' of other Posters and so I thought:- Why not see if ANYONE can hear what must be, exceedingly minute and subtle differences. Especially with the quality limitations of YouTube audio....? I have an original SAS/Boron Stylus for my 35 year-old Garrott P77 MM Cartridge as well as the NeoSAS/Sapphire and NeoSAS/Ruby BORON CANTILEVER SAPPHIRE CANTILEVER RUBY CANTILEVER And for those (like Frogman) who can't get by without their daily dose of Prokofiev...... BORON CANTILEVER SAPPHIRE CANTILEVER RUBY CANTILEVER |
@halcro So on the usual macair/airbuds Sapphire appears initially more resolving on both pieces of music. Ruby cantilever is awful - splashy top end and lacks definition from the midrange down. Weavers on the Ruby is unlistenable. Orchestral less so. Now in terms of Boron vs Sapphire, what I hear is more resolution with the Sapphire cantilever, particularly in the lower treble and up. It appears to be more articulate and resolving of air. However - the Boron has a more developed upper base and midrange - I know the Weavers album well - to my ears the voices are better resolved on the Boron, you can hear more chest, body and weight of the individual singers. The sapphire loses gravitas and resolution on vocals here in the lower range. On the Weavers the Boron aligns more with what I hear in my system, particularly in the vocal area. I am not familiar with the cartridges, but is the Boron SAS stylus profile a different profile from the other NeoSAS on the other 2. From my own experience I have had the Talisman B ( Boron ) and Talisman S ( Sapphire ). The Talisman S has more resolution overall with no downsides - midrange has both weight and resolution. PS Did you forget to feed your dog again. |
