..and Happy Holidays to all of you. I feel like you are all my friends and are on my side trying to get this damned thing to work. The gain of the preamp set at 60db. The volume control is set at the sometimes 11:00, sometimes 12:00 position depending on how the record was recorded - the exact place that the H was. Yes indeed I did notice the long break-in time with the H, however, this LP is way longer...I bet I have over 500 hours on it. The "magic" i'm talking about that the H had that mine doesn't seem to have is that super lucious midrange. The H had such a deep and wide soundstage the walls disappeared. There was extraordiny depth. Instruments and singers had a roundness of sound, clearly defined in their own little pocket of space. My wife says that this cartridge sounds like a very good hi-fi and most people would say very nice. The low end on the H had visceral impact and could shake the house with little effort. This one seems only to have the overtones of the lowest tones. The H had instant highs. Cymbals, triangles, etc would shimmer effortlessly. This LP sounds sandy. My whole system is Ayre and therefore balanced. The table has XLR connections. When the stylus drops into the groove its as silent as my Ayre C5xe Universal player. We'll see what more time, and different loading resistors can make. Oh - by the way, when I changed to 47000 ohms, the highs became unnaturally bright, but that midrange spaciousness/luciousness I long for is still not there.
