Tranfiguration Orpheus description

Dan, as I've already said, I'd really love to hear a UNI if there's anyone in Tucson or Phoenix who has one? Decently set up? Please, invite me over?

I still intend to listen (with my Temper W) to the critical passages Doug identified on the Trio and Sonic Fireworks albums. (I've pulled them out, so that's a start ;--)

But it's become quite consistant now, that every time I run across someone who says they prefer the sound of their LOMC at the 47K load impedance, I eventually discover they've set their stylus at < 1 degree SRA or even < 0 degrees SRA!

Chicken/egg-wise, the "47K" generally happens first. The person installs a brand new phono preamp out-of-the-box, which 90% of the time is set to a default 47K. Then they start playing records, and adjusting the tonearm (SRA) up and down 'til the treble stops shreiking, and lo and behold, the tonearm is tilted backward! I KNOW! I USED TO DO THE SAME THING MYSELF! In my youthful enthusiasm to "see how it sounds" and my youthful ignorance of the mechanical/electrical requirements that must be attended to first, I unwittingly put the cart before the horse. And thought I was soooo cool!

Moral of the story: while age alone is certainly no guarantee of wisdom, youth is attended always by a certain amount of ignorance ;--)
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Dear Doug: I think is important to know one spec about your phonolinepreamp unit that could help to understand what are you hearing through it.

That spec is: inverse RIAA eq. deviation between 20 to 20khz.
The Andrew CAT has a manufacturer spec on this regard of: +,- 0.1 db from 20 to 20kHz.

Could you find it for us?

Thx in advance.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul,

We did not evaluate a broad range of VTA in Doug's system . Paul tried several setting within a small range but I beleive all of the settings put the arm lower than parallel. Although, I preferred one of these settings, we did not make large enough changes to evaluate the cartridge with a parallele or slightly elevated arm.

The first thing I'll do this weekend is to see how the sound changes when I adjust the arm to be slightly lower than parallel. Based on doing this in the past, I expect it to deteriorate.

We only had a mistracking problem with that one track and I haven't experienced it in my own system. Can an improper VTA accentuate this? My cartridge did get wacked around just a little bit after running through two revolutions on a highly irrelgualr warped record. however, I didn't perceive any sonic degradation after this occured. Therefore I think the cartridge suspension is ok. As far ar the mfg recommended break-in time of 30 hours, I would be skeptical based on a) advice from Ttranny owners, 2) Bad advice in the instructions on VTF and loading.

We changed the volume between cartridges since they had different outputs.

Andrew

I have the O in my system right now. I borrowed it from a friend. It does not yet have 100 hours on it, so I will withold judgment on its ultimate performance. So far, in my system, I rather like its sound. It has a good, well integrated and tight bottom end, a touch elevated in the midrange (relative to my Titan), and is a bit shut down at the very top (less "air" than the Titan). Then again, I really have not tried to optimize setup for this cartridge. To change loading in my phono stage, I have to take it apart and solder in different resistors. That is why I am sticking with 1k ohms right now. It is also set at very slightly low (tail down) for VTA. Actually, a friend lent me a custom phono stage that was built specifically for a Helikon and it sounds even better than my stage with the O.

I find it interesting how vigorous is the debate on the relative merits of the O vs. the Z, particularly when everyone's system is so different. When I switched to my friend's stage, the sound was completely different from that of my stage. I really can't see how any phono component can be evaluated other than as part of an evaluation of the complete system.

I've heard so many different, yet all enjoyable set ups to get into a "who's best" kind of argument.

Neil, I nominate Raul to be the host of a comparison meeting. That way we all get a vacation in Mexico and hear some really great reproduction! (Plus we can spend his money on cartridges. :) )

Perhaps I missed it somewhere in Andrew's posts, but was he also running VTA tail down when the 47K loading sounded good in his system? If that's true it seems to contradict the theory that this VTA setting is the culprit.