zyx universe cartr.- ideal weight -ideal vta ,

great thread, alway interesting to hear how people tweak the machine to bring it to higher levels. This will help me as I have recently upgraded to a universe cartridge (can't wait to get it!!). I have been using a zyx airy3s for a couple of years and have used dougs approach to fine tune my cartridge. When you find that sweet spot, the cartridge really sings. THanks for the string

Stltrains,

After we had UNIverse #1 for about a year Mehran heard from some foreign dealer wanting a used one for demo purposes. He offered us a good trade in so we took the opportunity to get back to zero hours.

ZYX has no retipping service per se. When the time comes Mehran takes your old cartridge in trade and sells you a new one at a special price - like he did with ours. One could investigate aftermarket retippers but I wouldn't do it myself. They probably don't have access to the ZYX stylus. It's finer than other microridges, which IMO is one reason for the great resolution, clear HF extension and almost non-existent inner groove distortion. No coarser stylus that I've heard can do these things.

SirSpeedy wrote:

...just last week I played a 49 year old disc... which reinforced my "opinion" ... that there has been NO real progress in "musical reality" on recordings.

No argument from me. I've been trying to help a fellow A'goner with sibilance problems he's having on certain LP's of contemporary female vocalists. He mailed me a couple since we don't have them.

They played clean for us but the root cause of his problems became obvious: the singers were miked too close. When they push sibilants hard any component in the system that doesn't do HF's extremely well is going to smear them.

In addition, these engineers multi-miked everything and manipulated the tracks in the mix. (Example: three mikes for one acoustic bass, good grief!) The result sounds artificial. I want to hear music, not engineering tricks. I put on some old Verve recordings of Ella and Billie just to hear it done (almost) right again. :-)

BTW,anyone else,other than me,feel that the actual "phono cartridge"(the BEST of the breed) has been the "biggest" improvement in "real" reality,amongst the multitude of components that make up a great system?Do you think "this" has been the greatest breakthrough in music reproduction?

Until we got our Nick Doshi electronics we would have agreed entirely. Now it's not so easy to say that. We've heard 1 or 2 other cartridges that come reasonably close to a UNIverse. We've heard no other phono or line stage that comes close to our Doshi Alaap. There's been real progress there too.

Yeah,Doug,BUT the Doshi stuff is putting through what the "cartridge" hears.The cartridge's own distinct personality,and they all have the earmarks of their own dedicated "designer"....SO damn cool!!...Here is where I really envy those guys who have the time/money/patience to actually collect different designs...like a coin/stamp collector,or vinyl collector if we want to stay on subject.Whatever comes through the chain,regardless of electronics/speakers etc,starts at the cartridge(stylus,if one wants to get technical).To my way of thinking what the listener "really" hears(assuming all else is done "right")is the cartridge!No? -:)
Trust me,though I have no doubt the Doshi stuff is "fabs",I've got a couple of friends who have mega serious line/phonostages as well.
I never like to personally "talk up" my own personal system(unless an audiogon question relates here)because I feel it takes validity away from anything worthwhile I may have to say,and inserts ego instead.BUT I am definitely NOT insinuating you,or anyone else is guilty of this,and actually have no problem when some do so,which is often.
I try to speak through my personal experiences with friends' set-ups,who own SOTA stuff(the tables aren't bad,btw -:)
While we are on subject...one of your favorite cartridges is now on sale,here on 'gon....The Olympos...VERY nice design.SO collectible! I've got a friend who has it(not the lucky dog's most expensive either),but it's NOT his favorite,in his stable!Some folks are too lucky!!-:)
FWIW,a fanatical Classical LP collector!
Best

I see that the Olympos for sale is the lower output model, just 0.2mv. That's the version we've heard, twice; it's presumably faster and more responsive than the high output version. When I hit the lotto I'm thinking of asking Mehran for an extra-low output UNIverse, just half the length of wire on the coils for .12mv. It should sound incredible and we have enough gain.

We recently had a second opportunity to A/B the Olympos and UNIverse, this time in our system on our arm (last time was in Cello's system on a Schroeder Ref.) Different arms produce different results of course, but we were still surprised.

The Olympos no longer displayed the slight speed advantage it had at Cello's, they now seem dead even in that respect. More evidence that our relaxing suspension is letting the UNIverse become a hair faster? The session at Cello's compared a low hours UNIverse with a well seasoned Olympos, which perhaps gave some advantage to the Lyra (the opposite of our UNIverse/Orpheus session, which gave that advantage to the ZYX).

The only significant difference between these two in our setup was surprising to me, though not to the owner, who referred to the "classic, old Lyra sound". The Olympos brushed each note with the lightest touch of mink (his own term, very apt). It was like the subtlest imaginable Koetsu-ing of the sound, very unlike any modern Lyra.

It was so deftly done that even Paul admired it, and he normally dislikes that sort of coloration even more than I do. While we prefer the more revealing neutrality of the ZYX we could happily live with an Olympos! We can't afford both! Like you we're not collectors of anything but records, and those are for listening.

P.S. The Orpheus would also be on our shortlist of top class favorites and I actually can't think of any others (that we've heard). I expect a fully broken in copy would come pretty close to the other two, with individual differences I'm sure. A more extended comparison with seasoned copies would be interesting.

P.P.S. Remember that nasty, pinch-warped copy of 'Trio' the new Orpheus couldn't track? Well, neither could the seasoned Olympos. Nor can Dan_Ed's XV-1S. There's something about that warp that gives most cartridges fits. For whatever reason, a ZYX sails over it without even pumping the woofers. Maybe some arm/cart magic going on?

Doug: FWIW, the highest-resolution, most neutral cartridge in our lineup is not the Olymos, but the Titan i.

The Olympos has a more artfully stylized sound which undoubtedly makes it sound better on many systems. The Olympos is the one cartridge where we've deliberately allowed ourselves to indulge in poetic liberties (^o^). Probably as a result of this, I've been told by most Olympos owners that they prefer the Olympos, and I've also heard multiple installations where I agreed that the Olympos sounded preferable to the Titan.

But in a really top-flight system and set up immaculately, the Titan i (especially the single-layer coil SL version) shows higher resolution, greater dynamics and neutrality. I've had this confirmed to me by Olympos owners, who found that the performance hierarchy between Olympos and Titan was reversed once they upgraded their systems and also put more effort into the setup. Of course, personal taste also plays a big role, so if someone listens to the Olympos and Titan i in a top-flight setup and still prefers the Olympos, I fully understand.

Remember, when we buy a transducer like a cartridge or speaker (although the same also applies to amplification), we are buying the potential for performance, but not a guarantee of performance. Much of the performnce is up to the component, but the level of performance actually achieved also depends on how much of that performance we can extract, by choice of partnering equipment and setup. And I think that the more neutral and revealing the component in question is, (almost by definition) the deeper you have to dig to get most of the performance out.

I am sure that many of you already know all of this (particularly you, Doug), but it is worth the occasional reminder (^o^).

regards to all, jonathan carr