Would Like To Hear From Strain Gauge Owners

Thanks for the advice on hearing the cartridge for myself. I actually have heard it at the RMAF in 2007 and 2008. I admit it was very limited exposure, but I was very impressed with what I heard. I was also very impressed with Peter's "The Voice" cartridge. I was just trying to get opinions of those who have the SG in their systems at home and have had long term exposure to it.

Dear Frogman: How is that?, are you telling me that a recording being played through two different equalization curves have no different quality performance?, I'm not talking or posted anything about " accurate frequeny response " I speak and posted about different frequency response that's different of what you states.

IMHO two different frequency response curves give you at least two different tonal balance spectrum to the same recording and two different " all " music presentation.

Frogman, those facts have nothing to see with accuracy but differences on the equalization curves, example: one curve with + 1-2db on 60hz, 900hz, 3khz ( these deviations affects almost three octaves each one ) and the second curve with deviations at + 2-3db on 45hz, 360hz, 780hz, 1.8khz,5.5khz and - 2db at 3.5khz, please tell me: do you think that the quality performance that you hear through your system are not different on each one? because that's what I'm saying all the time: different quality performance.

I don't think that I'm missing the " boat ", some of you try to move it but the " boat " is still firm.

About the MUSIC contribution I have a lot lot to share but I don't have enough time to a second forum.

Slowhand/Mosin: when I posted my first post in this thread I had no idea that the SG device does not conforms according the RIAA standard, it was after a research when I take in count ( fortunately ) and share my findings: it was not exist a previous agenda like you think.

Now, I already receive several emails ( in the last 36 hours ) where the people give me " thank you " to put some light on the subject, I know that like me many of you read for the very first time on those findings about and this fact for the good or the bad IMHO is a learning " episode ".

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Slowhand/Mosin: when I posted my first post in this thread I had no idea that the SG device does not conforms according the RIAA standard, it was after a research when I take in count ( fortunately ) and share my findings: it was not exist a previous agenda like you think.

in your first post you said this

I always said that the RIAA eq deviation makes a great differences in a MC or MM quality performance and only when you hear cartridges in a phono stage with a RIAA eq deviation lower than 0.1db can you understand how important is that subject.

If you didn't understand the situation, why did you profess accuracy?

dave

Slowhand, I bought The Voice Ebony after hearing it at this year's RMAF. It's really a wonderful sounding cartridge. A local friend also bought one at this year's RMAF and he's a huge vinyl-phile re-discovering his large collection. Anyway, it stands up to long-term, repeat listening.

It works great with 40dB of gain, 47kOhms and 400pF capacitive loading. I tweaked the azimuth tonight and got rid of a little stray sibilance.

Peter's great to work with. He even called me from his hospital bed to make sure that I got my setup right, particularly stressing loading and azimuth. Peter loves his music and makes great products.

Who knows, maybe I'll buy a SG one day, but The Voice is making me very happy right now.

Dave

According to Raul there is only one right way to do anything in this hobby. We are all either too stupid, not intelligent, have tin ears, not enough common sense, etc, to get how correct Raul. Ok, I think I have that part memorized now.

But forget this "bench racing" type argument here in the forums. How does this stuff sound?

Some of us have heard what Raul's implementation sounds like in side-by-side comparison to some of his competitor's products. This is where Raul's on paper arguments have trouble in the real world. They just don't live up to the hype Raul is constantly spreading. Yes, his work sounds pretty good. There are some good and some not so good sounds coming from Raul's implementation of his ideas. Some sounds coming from Raul's Essential could be cleaned up and made better with some cable swaps.

Umm, that pretty much sums up every phonostage/preamp combination around. So it doesn't appear that Raul's work has started any audio revolution. The Essential is just another product out there for us to choose from.

The concept Raul cannot get, and probably never will, through his pointy little head is that all of the theory and math doesn't mean crap when you hook things up and turn it on. It is just talk points. How does it sound?!? That is all that matters in the end.

As Peter, Teres, and others have pointed out, each additional component that is added to implement that perfect curve is adding coloration to the sound, or it is squashing something else. Either dynamics or detail. Anyone who has played around with crossovers to any extent knows this very well. Sometimes you can get a very pretty curve from the simulations and even in actual implementation but it still doesn't sound right.

Raul can never allow this kind of thinking to go unchallenged because it flies in the face of almost every argument he makes in his marketing campaign.