Appreciate your confirmation, I don’t doubt at all that Etsuro Gold would be a wonderful addition to my analog rig. Thank you for sharing your early thoughts on DaVa Reference, something to consider down the road :-)
What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?
I believe that a cartridge and a speaker, by far, contribute the most to SQ.
The two transducers in a system.
I bit the bulllet and bought a Lyra Atlas SL for $13K for my Woodsong Garrard 301 with Triplanar SE arm. I use a full function Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp. My $60K front end. It is certainly, by far, the best I have owned. I read so many comments exclaiming that Lyra as among the best. I had to wait 6 months to get it. But the improvement over my excellent $3K Mayijima Shilabi was spectacular-putting it mildly.
I recently heard a demo of much more pricy system using a $25K cartridge. Seemed to be the most expensive cartridge made. Don’t recall the name.
For sure, the amount of detail was something I never heard. To hear a timpani sound like the real thing was incredible. And so much more!
This got me thinking of what could be possible with a different kind of cartridge than a moving coil. That is, a moving iron.
I have heard so much about the late Decca London Reference. A MI and a very different take from a MC. Could it be better? The World’s Best? No longer made.
However Grado has been making MI cartridges for decades. Even though they hold the patent for the MC. Recently, Grado came out with their assault on “The World’s Best”. At least their best effort. At $12K the Epoch 3. I bought one and have been using it now for about two weeks replacing my Lyra. There is no question that the Atlas SL is a fabulous cartridge. But the Epoch is even better. Overall, it’s SQ is the closest to real I have heard. To begin, putting the stylus down on the run in grove there is dead silence. As well as the groves between cuts. This silence is indicative of the purity of the music content. Everything I have read about it is true. IME, the comment of one reviewer, “The World’s Best”, may be true.
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In the assault of the high end I think there are at least two or three value camps. One would be high resolution and another maybe natural / musical and forgiving. You could probably come up with a couple more. But I get what Mike is asking… there are a few extraordinarily cartridges out there that satisfy some end groups desires. |
Doggie, was joking about having a fragile ego. If you read about Nagaoka cartridges on Raul’s MM thread, the MP50 and 500 were very often referred to as MM types or else without specifying the transducer type. I guess that’s where I picked up my idea that they’re MMs. Right now listening to Monk on Riverside, via my B&O MMC20CL, another great MI cartridge. |
Dear @lalitk : DaVa Reference, something to consider down the road ". Well the field coil ( electro magnetically. ) cartridges is an example that not only audiophiles as us make our room/system choices along its trade-offs/compromises that are the " best " for each one of us but that manufacturers always do it.
Audio Note field coil cartridge comes with cantilever against the DaVa cantilever-less design but not only that DaVa choosed a tube power supply ( that has no sense to me. ) with all the " artefacts " surrounded tubes as some kind level of microphonics or development of some kind of noise/hum against the design Audio NOTE power supply in its cartridge that looks really good: Which cartridge performs better well it’s the same question of the OP in this thread: different trade-offs. Cantilever-less has " immediacy " in the kind of sound ( something as horn drivers. ) but with a penalty that’s that are not very good trackers and due to this fact can’t pick up all the grooves information. I owned the Ikeda cantilever-less model and that’s why I know that.
Anyway, a field coil cartridge design s welcomed. Is it better? only each owner can tell it. The cartridges looks the same but only difference at sigth are the 6 pins cartridge connectors instead the normal 4 output pins connectors.
Btw, Audio Note manufacture too field coil speaker drivers. R. |
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