ZYX Universe and Lyra Titan

Why are you guys assuming that I was on the verge of bashing Dougdeacon,? That was not my intent.

Guys, if you don't mind, lets stick to the original subject. I have been a reader of this forum for about 3-4 years and I welcome the opinions of all the above folks. Your answers have been thoughtful and meaningful. By the way, my arm is a Tri-Planar VII and table is an Avid Volvare. The Olympos confuses me since it's not around. Is the Titan its replacement?

Dear Richard: I agree with Sirspeedy: there is no " best cartridge " per se.

Like Lugnut, I think that the tonearm makes a great difference.

The exercise where Doug and Lugnut participate: Universe/Olympus it is only a " great analog time " but really don't tell me which one is better. It only can tell me some differences between them: maybe these differences ( for the better ) are because one cartridge makes a better match with that tonearm, we can`t be sure.

In my opinion the only way to really knows which cartridge is better that other one is to find to each cartridge the best tonearm match and do the audio tests in that way.

You have a plus on the Titan because they take the helikon in exchange. For me the Titan could be my first choice, as a fact the Titan is a top performer.

Now if you want to have the best cartridge you have to find which one is the best with your tonearm and find the best for your personal audio quality priorities.

There are many top contenders outside: Transfiguration, Dynavector XV-1, Allaerts MC2 Finish, Clearaudio Insider, Ortofon MC 7500, Van denHul Colibri, Denon Dls1, Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum ( in the right tonearm ), Lyra Titan, Ikeda Rex9, Benz Micro LP, ZYX Universe, Shelther 90X, etc, etc. You have a lot of top cartridges options.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul,

We listened to the UNIverse on both a TriPlanar VII and a Schroeder Ref. Unfortunately we only heard the Lyra on the Ref, due to lack of time. You can only do so much in five days.

FWIW, there was no significant performance drop on switching to the TriPlanar. Many were surprised at how close the UNIverse/TriPlanar was to the UNIverse/Ref. The differences were a matter of taste. The UNIverse/TriPlanar had more leading edge crispness and PRaT. The UNiverse/Ref had more harmonic richness and ambience. Exactly what I'd expect from these two arms. The ZYX revealed the character of each.

I suspect the Olympos would have acted about the same. It is a superbly honest and revealing cartridge.

Richardmr,
The Titan is not a literal replacement for the Olympos. It's more like a real-world design vs. a design that became unrealistic to produce. AFAIK, Lyra stopped making the Olympos *only* because the magnets it required became prohibitively expensive and/or unobtainable. The Titan uses more readily available materials. I don't know if anyone other than Lyra has directly compared them.

Gmorris,
Your recollection about my "high end" experience was almost correct. We've owned some high end components since 1991, but only got into high end vinyl a couple of years ago. (Had to pay off the mortgage first.) I can't imagine why anyone would care, but thanks for asking.

SirSpeedy,
Paul is my partner of 22 years. He has better ears than me, more brains than me (PhD in a real discipline vs. my lowly BA), makes more money than me, cooks better than me and has more fun beating up on Cello via private emails than he could ever have posting here. He also has no tolerance for fools, so I am truly grateful he doesn't read many of my posts!

Doug

Dougdeacon:

I just thought at the time that your learning curve seemed pretty steep and your exposure to so many different “hard to audition” components was extensive in such a short time.

I may not always agree with your points but they are always well stated. I respect your opinions.