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.
well put! I often find that those who rely heavily on the objective are incapable / uncomfortable forming a consistent subjective opinion. I am by no means suggesting that the objective has no place in audio. I feel that the best use of theory and measurement is to help explain what we actually like rather than as a tool to dictate what we should like. dave
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Dear @frogman : Thank’s for your post, appreciated.
" BUT Raul knows what a good (accurate) sound truly is. "
That is part of the whole misunderstood because it’s not about me, yes I post what my researh on the post of any gentleman and my common sense tells me.
Again, what I post are only the " facts " I found out respect the issues under discussions and that’s all. Like in this thread normally I post: " I’m not saying I’m rigth " or " I can be wrong ". Everything in my posts is up to you, nothing personal and obviously not " because I know/Bible about. Dear Agoner’s, as I already posted before I post always made and make a deep research to at least know: the way of thinking of the gentleman, what he likes, which room/system owns, etc, etc and to find out all those and more information I read not only his threads if any but his answers he posted through the time.
Any one of you can be sure I really make my job and in the Mike case I had to read several threads post pages ( over 300 ).additional in wbf and that’s why I posted what I posted to warning him. From where do you think I posted that: " analog complete and his contradiction about what he posted in Agon digital forum about that I posted in this thread?" You already know that I knew you are a musician and fortunatelly you are not the subject in this thread.
Do you think that for any one is easy to say to a gentleman of the MIke caliber: what you are listening is totally wrong?, I did it because I have/found out EVIDENCE that no one of you questioned and he neither in all what I posted and when I made the mistake to post that that cartridge was cantilever-less design at the moment that I took in count I’m wrong I posted that I was wrong and my mistake.
I took all that time because for to many years to remember he is an audio friend for me.
R.
Btw, other than @jcarr seller opinions as twose two I don't take care. Useless and only looking $$$$ and Mike has that part of the $$$ they are looking for but this does not justify their " attitude ". |
@noromance , Please and really, I do not mean this as a reflection of you but I have seen people tolerate a lot worse! Any cartridge will track at 10 grams. Don't you remember the days when we put a penny on top of the head shell? @rauliruegas , I was being generous. My room is also dead centered and I am forever adjusting my balance. Every record is different. Most of the time it is just a sensation of too much energy coming from one side. The singer's voice will still seem dead center. Just a shift of 0.1 to 0.2 dB to one side will take care of it. Yes, I also can usually tell up front how much it will take. I think the problem is that every system is that much different. Maybe one speaker or monitor is just that much more efficient than the other. The best adjusted systems in the world are at best 0.1 to 0.2 dB off center. Anyway, this is what remotes are for:-) I would like to straighten the record a little. Listening to and enjoying music is a passive luxury. Building a state of the art music system is an active necessity. They are two very different activities. There are chat rooms and one location at this one where you can gush over the music. Here we split hairs over Hi Fi equipment. There are many ways to approach this subject and disagreement is a way of life in any human interaction. If you can't take the heat go fishing.
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Absolutely true that there are many ways to approach this subject and one of those ways is never losing sight of the importance (for some) of NOT separating the act of music listening from the process of building a system. To do so is an approach that strikes me as wrong headed. A system cannot be SOTA if it doesn’t do a good job of honoring the music. It may be SOTA on paper, but so what? |
i guess one man’s perspective of listening opinions not being respected, is another man’s delight over splitting hairs over hifi equipment. so time for me to go fishing. or......be where my listening opinions are more respected. the balance here is just not for me. not really that big a deal. posters here don’t need to know my opinions about gear they mostly have never heard. here it’s more about the trees, i’m a forest guy. why should i be where i’m mostly a target since i bring listening opinions that are then attacked to feed the hair splitting? does not make sense....to me. |
