What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

Dear @mglik  :  Channel D is a very good full SS design and wil makes your Grado shines better than ever. Good move.

Then you already " married " with the Grado. Must be something unique and obviously something to experienced.

Btw, along with a better phono stage unit I told you that could be a good idea to mate/test the Grado with a different tonearm and there are several options about like Reed. 

Now, could be a quality improvement with a different tonearm?, wel I don't know for sure it's a " move " that has to past the listening tests. There is no other way but if you try it could or not find out that quality improvement level performance and if not then you confirm that what you have rigth now is the " one " couple in your system and that meet your Music/audio priorities.

Only thinking " loud ".

R.

@rauliruegas 

You have now posted thousands of words on this thread over the past month but have still not answered the OP's question.

Did you understand the original question.

@mglik  : Btw, do you know which the differences between the Grado ellipthical stylus shape ( that says is a " special "/unique elliptical tip. ) and normal ellipthical stylus samples?.

Obviously is working great but where is different is the question. Only curiosity.

R.

Dear @mglik : I owned and own vintage Grado cartridges and till today no one of them ( including " the tribute ". ) disappointment under playing by its quality level performance.

" Optimized Transmission Line " was what Joseph Grado named to a totally new kind of design inside his first MC and latter on inside the Signature models as the XTZ and other models on this series.

That kind of new design dissapeared when those vintage Signature Z series gone out of the market but the white papers about were inside Grado company. Any one that lisened the XTZ knows that today could be one of the best cartridge quality performer out there. Maybe your Epoch 3 shares that cartridge motor design that’s a unique one and only Grado has it.

Btw, about that special ellipthical stylus in the Epoch 3 could be one of two other than ellipthical stylus shape used by Grado but unfortunatelly came only with a name but no description of the tip shape. One was named just: Grado tip and comes in one of the Grado samples I still own and the other is the one in the Signature family of the XTZ named: Twin Tip and maybe this is that " special ellipthical " in the Epoch 3 and I think this because today there is nothing really NEW on top stylus tip shapes: everything we can imagine stays already in the market.

Anyway, again thinking loud.

R.

@mglik : " 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. "

I already posted here about your statement but was till today that I fall in count that one of the main Grado characteristic in its Optimized transmission line cartridge design was to " disappears " the surface noise but not only in the unmodulated grooves but mainly in the modulated grooves and achieve that with out any single compromise/trade-off that could disturb the true MUSIC signal information and yes you can hearing it. It’s part of that high quality level performance you are in experience with your Epoch 3.

Again, congratulations for,

R.