How Does the Soundsmith

Dear Doug: I always say: system, ears and music priorities dependent.

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Mr Audiofeil...THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS! Not from me btw...I just see it coming. LOL.

You may very well have heard the Voice at RMAF last year in the OMA room. At the time, I was using the cartridge because I thought it was fantastic with the Schroeder Reference on the Saskia slate idler drive turntable, producing the kind of sound I wanted from the OMA system. Now OMA also sells the Voice, so that's my disclaimer.

I've heard the Voice in direct comparison with the Lyra Olympos, Koetsu Coralstone Platinum, and Soundsmith Strain Gauge, all on Schroeder arms, and can assure you that its up there with all of them, despite costing a factor of 3 to 5 times less, which is simply remarkable. And one does not have to deal with issues of MC carts such as properly matching step up transformers. Despite what some other posters in this thread have suggested, the Voice is not only extremely fast due to its very low moving mass, its also tonally correct, and a pleasure to listen to. I would not use words like "easy" or "romantic" to describe it, but natural and accurate. I was never a big fan of moving magnet cartridges before I heard the Voice, but it certainly changed my mind very, very quickly.

I won't even begin to discuss the Zyx...

Jonathan (Oswaldsmill Audio)

Aptquark,
I mentioned in an earlier post that I own the Universe. It's a good product.

However, there are better phono cartridges available. I know this is contrary to some of the cheerleading you'll read here. Some of these folks are surrogates and/or friends of the previous Zyx distributor and have used the threads to champion this line for the past few years.

Over time they will gain the experience and realize how small their audio world was before hearing some of the real knock out cartridges.

After I bought the MMC-1 (the cheaper sibling of the Voice), I sold my Lyra Argo. Yes it is very articulate and fast.

But the SS Moving Irons have to matched to the tonearm for lower mass than the current favourites suited for moving coils, and this statement includes the so-called medium compliance version, which I have one. All my tonearms have 15 or 20 or even more effective mass (high mass Schroeder, Pluto, FR). Better use a 10 to 12g effective mass tonarm.

best regards, Hartmut