Transfiguration Orpheus, what step-up

I am a relatively new owner of an Orpheus, circa 100 hours of playtime. I have gravitated to a gain of 64 dB using a Sutherland (battery powered) phonostage (i.e. no step-up), 90 ohms resistive loading, ~1.94 g. VTF. I am still fiddling with VTA, with the cartridge mostly in the range of nearly parallel to the TT surface which appears to give a reasonable SRA - and most importantly, the best sound. I agree with Jtimothya above regarding azimuth adjustment. I was trying to adjust the by minimizing crosstalk (1K Hz test tone/ voltmeter) and listening, of course. I found that the azimuth kept changing; not dramtically, but there was more variance than expected. The problem appeared to be the cartridge had really not been fully broken in - I was taking measurements at 10, 20, 30, etc. hours. The variance has gone way down now that I have more hours, so be patient with your adjustments recognizing they may change.

Finally, the "O" sounds awesome - truly a highly resolving, but very lifelike cartridge.

Good luck!

The Orpheus has enough output that you shouldn't need a stepup device with it. Transformers will obscure detail and impact from the cartridge; if you can't get it to work with your phono preamp, I would consider a preamp with more gain as the improvement over the use of transformers is the sort of thing that you hear in 5 seconds flat: its not subtle.

Dear Jesper: I like the Transfiguration cartridges, I owned the Spirit/Temper/temper V-W and heard many times the Orpheus ( but not the Phoenix ).

Its quality performance change depending on the tonearm you match with it and other than the time for broke-inn the Phonolinepreamp is critical to achieve its real quality performance.

IMHO using a step-up transformer ( any ) with the Orpheus ( btw, with any cartridge . ) is like trying to drive a Ferrari in a croos-out-road ( I don't know the right words, maybe non-pave? ), if you want that your Ferrari performs at its best you have to drive that car in the right " road ".

What you are hearing now is not your Orpheus ( at least is only a very poor " shadow " of the quality performance of the Orpheus. ) but the heavy SUT degraded signal and this is a little un-fair for your Orpheus investment.

I agree with Atmasphere, you will be very satisfied when you match that Orpheus with an active high gain Phonolinepreamp ( no SUT external or internal ), the quality differences are so great that you could not believe it.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Scubadooo, I recently moved from a Phoenix to Orpheus. At first listening O did not reveal its real virtues so a well used Phoenix seemed more consistent but even at first minute, O was more dynamic and airy. Now after 30-40 hours, I can say O is performing better. I am very pleased with it and as other have said I am sure it will be better after another 40-50 hours.

I guess SU unit must be the case for you.

Sirspeedy,

Welcome back. What tonearm are you using now (or will be using) with your Orpheus?

Andrew