I shall now answer the OP's question. The best cartridge in the world is always the one I have mounted at the moment.
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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That may well be. I see it slightly differently, which is this:
Apparently the LP sells well enough that record stores exist and make a living selling them. That economic can't be ignored. New titles (not reissues) are being pressed all the time. So the above quote from Raul is false. Most of the market has nothing to do with audiophiles- its record companies selling LPs to kids. Or old people like me that like new music. Heck, I just bought some Lana Del Ray LPs off ebay and they aren't reissues :) |
Let's fix that. For every one person who buys an LP two people buy a digital file. Vinyl LP Sales Hit New Highs in 2021, Surpassed CDs – Billboard |
@atmasphere , I agree! I by current music on LP all the time. There is plenty of money to be made on LPs but it is no where what it use to be in the 70's. My children love music. They turn me on to new music all the time like Black Midi. They have absolutely no interest in LPs. They represent the vast majority of young people. If I were a betting man I would bet LPs will be dead within 50 years. I won't be here to see it. I spin records because I have been doing it all my life from the age of 4 and like most humans I hate change. If I look at my own purchases it is about 50/50 LPs to digital files. What does that say? |
+1 Absolutely. The resurgence happened in response to the unending disappointment in the CD. But at last digital… both CD and more importantly streaming has reached equal or better (high Rez streaming) sound quality in many component combinations and will continue advancing. Without the sound quality advantage vinyl just becomes nostalgic.
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