Is There An "Absolute" Best Cartridge?


Dear friends: We can read through different threads/posts in this forum that people always want/ask to know for the " best " " audio item " that IMHO and till today does not exist in " absolute " meaning.
Well I already have and I'm " living " a unique experience that makes me to share with all of you what IMHO could be in Absolute terms " the best cartridge ever ".

Please read this Technics EPC-P100C-MK4 information that could help you for you can share with us your experiences/thoughts on the subject of this thread:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1200430667&openflup&1827&4#1827

Thank you in advance.
Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.
Ag insider logo xs@2xrauliruegas
I'm all the more inclined to accept Raul's discernment of Technics in view of his long restraint in crowning a winner through some 1800 posts to his MM/MI thread. Of course one must judge these things for oneself. It is therefore unfortunate that few will be able to acquire and compare Technics. IMO the only controversial point is whether it is worth writing a painstaking & thoughtful review of a collectible classic rather than a current product. However to this point, many other top NOS MM/MI cartridges are still available for those who trouble to seek them out at a fraction of the cost of a top MC. Raul, thanks for your archeological dig of analog history! To the majority who will never cross this psychological devide, spend money to express yourself!

Raul, a point you make that I particularly grasp is that after all their virtues are considered, most MM/MI remain challenged (relative to MC) to produce realistic tonality and delineation of deep LF. Of my samples top Azden does the least harm in this area. If Technics equals Azden in other respects while surpassing it in LF repro then it must be great.
Raul constantly says to try these things yourself and is open to other peoples input.
of course there's not... unless we're all going to buy the same source components, same amplification components, same speakers, same cables and set up in the same room. Oh yeah, and I guess we'd have to clone Raul's auditory cortex and transplant it into each of our temporal lobes...

There are so many variables in audio, ESPECIALLY analog! I have no idea how anyone deems anything as "absolute best".

Here's the thing - and I've expressed this before to Raul directly - I applaud what he's done. He's brought to light a ton of older MM/MI cartridges that most have forgotten and given detailed reviews of what he hears from each of them. I get that and appreciate it.

What I don't get is how so many people can line up and just accept it all as gospel. Again, I'm not denigrating the great work Raul has done - I'm just saying, if I'm going to separate my cash from my bank account on an audio purchase, I make damn sure I've got more than one person giving me an opinion on the item.

When I read dozens of people saying "the Shure V15-VMR has a razor flat frequency response" that gets my attention. When I get one person declaring something as being the "best ever, period" that gets me shaking my head in wonder.
Raul - the only logic answer to your original question in this thread is: NO.
The things that make me wonder,why some of the new "state of the art" cartridges are not much better than some of "state of the art" models from 20-30 years ago,according to some who can actually afford to buy the new top models.If CD would have been introduced ten years later, I wonder how much more cartridge technology would have advanced.Why should one have to spend $4K + to hear a current state of the art cartridge?Why would it be hard to believe the Technics EPC-P100MK4 could be one of the best ever produced?Its a shame Technics/Panasonic doesn't produce these fine cartridges anymore.