@dover I think we are seeing that logic is not someone's strong suit, whatever his pretensions.
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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Indeed, and many musicians, famous and not so famous, who still prefer to record in analogue would be gone as well. There are numerous who split their recording - for example use digital for vocals, but analogue for instrumentation. Each system has its pros and cons. |
Not even analized the whole context/scenario but: Good, now we have posts with the rigth answers that proved and solved the lost-less information digital technology issue ones and for ever. ! Thank's for that, really useful for every one of us.
@dover do it a favor and don't make that " great " effort to hit me because you just can't your brain is not good enough for and then you will down in a depression. Is up to you.
R
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Even the fruitless discussion of "what is the best cartridge" was more interesting than this banter about digital vs analog. None of the protagonists is ever going to be dissuaded from his or her point of view, so best to live and let live. However, it's interesting to me that digital is taken as "lossless". The Holy Grail of digital is certainly lossless-ness, but digital by its very nature can only approach lossless-ness. Modern hi-rez digital streaming certainly gets very close to that goal or closer than ever before in the history of digital music and perhaps has already exceeded in its lossless-ness our capacity to sense "loss". At least for some of us. Meantime, analog is lossless by its nature but nevertheless "loses" something due to distortion producing aspects of its methods. So, what's the best cartridge? |
Apparently you or you'd not have responded. Based on other's responses others apparently do too.
There is an alternative explanation as well 😁 I recommend if you can, get one of the more respected Reel to Reel tape machines (like a Studer) get it properly refurbished and see for yourself. To make comments lacking the experience to back them up is absurd.
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