Hi Pechtm,
I've also got the Fuji FS (w/o silver base) and have been thinking about seriously upgrading. Like you, I listen to mostly jazz and rock, although classical is recently on the rise in my collection.
I think the Fuji is an absolutely fantastic cart in most respects, but in my setup, it seems to lack to tonal body, weight, and drive of my other three carts(Grado "The Statement", Cartridge Man Music Maker III, and Denon DL-103d) on 70's hard rock or large scale classical like Mahler & Wagner.
In all fairness to the ZYX, though, most of this may be simply a result of less than optimal tonearm matching and/or cart setup. First and foremost, I'm relatively new to vinyl and my setup skills betray that. Second, I have a very unique and rarely used tonearm(Scheu Tacco) that is less than ideal for cartridge swapping/comparison and lacks any form of repeatable, calibrated, fine adjustments. The arm is intensely musical in the right situations, nonetheless.
In this particular situation, the Tacco and Fuji simply may not be a perfect match. Or, I just haven't been able to find the "sweet spot".
*** I don't want people to interpet any of this as a sign that the ZYX Fuji is lacking in any way. My system falls into a 1% category of preferred design and performance criterion(flea-powered, hi-efficiency, single driver w/ extremely rare tonearm) that results are highly unlikely to be the same in the vast majority of other people's setups.***
Regardless, from Doug, Mehran's, and other's remarks around here, the Airy 3-S may better address my personal needs. I'm saving pennies for a different tonearm right now that will allow fine, calibrated, adjustments in all three planes like Doug's Triplanar or one of the used Dynavector 507 mkII's for sale right now. After that, I'll look into forming conclusions about any of the carts I have.
I've also got the Fuji FS (w/o silver base) and have been thinking about seriously upgrading. Like you, I listen to mostly jazz and rock, although classical is recently on the rise in my collection.
I think the Fuji is an absolutely fantastic cart in most respects, but in my setup, it seems to lack to tonal body, weight, and drive of my other three carts(Grado "The Statement", Cartridge Man Music Maker III, and Denon DL-103d) on 70's hard rock or large scale classical like Mahler & Wagner.
In all fairness to the ZYX, though, most of this may be simply a result of less than optimal tonearm matching and/or cart setup. First and foremost, I'm relatively new to vinyl and my setup skills betray that. Second, I have a very unique and rarely used tonearm(Scheu Tacco) that is less than ideal for cartridge swapping/comparison and lacks any form of repeatable, calibrated, fine adjustments. The arm is intensely musical in the right situations, nonetheless.
In this particular situation, the Tacco and Fuji simply may not be a perfect match. Or, I just haven't been able to find the "sweet spot".
*** I don't want people to interpet any of this as a sign that the ZYX Fuji is lacking in any way. My system falls into a 1% category of preferred design and performance criterion(flea-powered, hi-efficiency, single driver w/ extremely rare tonearm) that results are highly unlikely to be the same in the vast majority of other people's setups.***
Regardless, from Doug, Mehran's, and other's remarks around here, the Airy 3-S may better address my personal needs. I'm saving pennies for a different tonearm right now that will allow fine, calibrated, adjustments in all three planes like Doug's Triplanar or one of the used Dynavector 507 mkII's for sale right now. After that, I'll look into forming conclusions about any of the carts I have.