Which cartridge is the Imaging/soundstaging champ

Dear Jim: Now, I understand a little more about. Your speakers are great ones in their frequency range and a very good tool for " discovery "/detect problems in the audio chain.

Usually the Cardas cables needs around 300 hours ( at least ) to achieve its target. I never heard yours so I can't speak about but I have the Golden reference and is avery good one. Of course the new tubes will make a difference.

Btw, if you want/need to change the cartridge ( I will do it ) think about Sumiko Blackbird or Sumiko Celebration, both mates very good with your tonearm. Why don't you do something: ask directly to Mr. Weisfeld on VPI on his opinion on these Sumiko cartridges mated with VPI products that you have.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Doug,thanks SO much for the kind words.In all honesty the only thing I may(?)have added(I find it hard to believe others were not aware of some of this),on the helpful side,was some hard learned 2.2 aspects of tweaking it to max performance. I'm now beginning to wonder whether it(mine) is really meaningfully optimized without a REALLY good digital guage(most guages,of this type,except the WINDS,which I'll be getting soon,exibit drift.My current one is cute,but I don't trust it,after recent experience with the Winds).I trust few of them,and am looking forward to getting a bit more from my LP's!I really think,after recently reconfiguring my pal's 2.2,with a new Venustas(Purist)armlink,using a borrowed Winds guage,that it will be a new "KEY" to my own analog bliss!

The rest of my posts actually "sucked",and I really was a "putz" to allow the other me to think that I could get away with some of the muckraking I tried.As it is I get the distinct impression(sadly),that a really fine guy like Larry was put off enough to distance himself a bit!I hope I'm wrong,here!!

My only reason for reposting again,aside from a lovely E-mail from Raul(who happens to be a really decent guy,outside of his inaccurately perceived persona,and I always felt that way),was because I figured that I could gain additional insight(there's always stuff to "ponder")from associations here,and sometimes I may(?)be able to add something meaningful.So,in reality I'm back for selfish reasons,and to gain from picking up new insights,from people like YOU!

Thanks!!!

Jdolgin,
As it's clear that you'd like to hear about some direct experience with JMW9 & Airy2, I can offer semi-relevant experience. I'm currently using a JMW12.6 with the Airy3-S-SB. It strikes me and many visitors as a very good combination. As Doug noted above, the silver base weight from ZYX(or the VPI weight), denoted as "SB" in the model, is required for successful matching.
I'd venture to guess that the Airy2 would be great with the JMW9, and you'd find it worth the price of admission.
FWIW, I second the comment about records having to be very clean, or you hear impact of every piece of dust. Cheers,
Spencer

Thanks all!!!
I've ordered a ZYX airy from Mehran.
My system is very warm with tubes tubes and more tubes.
A neutral, high resolution, detail retrieving cartridge should work perfectly.
My EAR 834P MC section has 100 Ohm input impedance, and enough gain.
Hopefully, all will match up well.
Jim

Jdolgin:
I remember reading an article in Stereophile(91) with a rep from Keotsu and he said their cartridges were designed for Classical and Jazz genre's. Now this was a long time ago and now their are so many keotsu cartridges I'm sure some are suited for other genre's like rock,Opera etc etc. What ever you buy tell the dealer what kind of music you listen to. No need buying a cartridge that does a superb job unraveling the inner detail in Classical recordings if you don't listen to classical. In life and in manufacturing you must sacrifice some things for the whole... unless you can afford it all.