Your Impressions of the DV XX2 MKII

I currently have this cart on a Scoutmaster with the JMW9 arm and am very happy. No mistracking or other misbehavior. That said it is very fiddly to set up. Thanks to Soundsmith and the counter intuitive and the heavy mounting hardware and a Mint protractor it can be done. Orders of magnitude better than the DV20XH it replaced.

Thanks for all the feedback. I ordered the XX2 yesterday and should have it setup by late next week! I will report back on the results once I put a few hours on it and it 'settles' in.

McDonald43: That is exactly the set up I had, included a desperate attempt with Mint Lp protractor as well, (and Symposium anti-vibe shelf. While it fleshed-out inner grooves better than 20xl, man, the mistracking! I had an expert over twice to double check my work. Some albums which offended, (for split seconds, but stil: Britten's "Rejoice in the Lamb" on Argo, esp. the Missa Brevis, Varese' Poem Electronique, (last few minutes), Freni's final aria, side one Karajan La Boheme, Last 1/3 side one, of Janacek's Katya Kabanova/Mackerras, Debussy's Sonata for flute and harp final pages, Melos Ensemble; Climax of final Kyrie Vaughan Williams' Masss in G/EMI, Moravec, 4th Ballade Chopin "Poet of Piano," final climax of "Jeux" Haitink/Philips, Askenazy Rachmaninoff Preludes, London; Final chorus Rosza's Ben Hur, Perlman/Ashkenazy Beethoven Spring Sonata, final mov't, well...I could go on. Have any of these Lp's?

Well my new DV XX2 MKII has been installed and it sounds GREAT! Very happy with this cartridge and I am confident it will sound even better as I use it over the next 30 to 50 hours. There's no doubt in my mind that the XX2 is several notches above my old DV 20xl (which is pretty darn good for the money). But, the XX2 is definitely better in every way. Highly recommended!

BTW, a big thank you to Jeff at High Water Sound in New York for providing this great cartridge. His advice was right-on target and Jeff really knows his trade. A great guy to deal with also!

Glad the XX2 worked out for you. As I said, I am very pleased with it. I just can't wait to spin more records every day. If you are dealing with Jeff, then I would have to recomend a Raven table. They seem to be top shelf in their price range. I almost bought one from Jeff but at the time I could not make it work in my system. Jeff was very pleasent and even though I did not buy anything from him, he was very helpful. I would go with a Raven one probably if you could afford it. I am happy with my Amadeus GTA and I know I can get it sounding better. But some day who knows... Enjoy your new cart and I will give an advance congrats on the new table :)