Moving coil with a bit less leading edge

>>> ...the sounds I most frequently hear at live orchestral concerts rarely display the kind of clean, tight contours quite a few audiophiles prefer...

If your experience of live orchestral music is that leading edges are rounded or that the sound is other than *very* crisp and clear, you need to sit in acoustically better halls (or at least acoustically better seats).

Come sit next to me in the Belding Theater in Harford CT, where the HSO plays (and brilliantly too, under our new Music Director, Carolyn Kuan). We have season tix for two of the four best seats in the house. The sonics are crisp, clear, enormously dynamic and highly revealing... more so than ANY stereo system.

I suspect this excessive crispness you're objecting to is an artifact added by the system. Rather than trying to paper over it with a schmoozy cartridge, stick with a revealing cartridge and track down the source(s) of the problem.

My purist $.02, FWIW, etc. :)

The unique ability to pick up the trailing edge or the decay of musical instruments is exactly what I find so appealing about some of the best MM cartridges I have been playing with for the past year. I especially hear this on solo piano music with a really good MM, and I think it has something to do with the superior tracking ability of MMs. In fact, some of the posts here remind me of a debate around the virtues of MC vs MM cartridges. But there are many very expensive MCs that I have not heard, so take it with a grain of salt. I too am curious about the Miyajima cartridges and do plan to indulge in the near future.

I'm a bit embarrassed. It took me a while to connect the BBs in my brain to realize that simply making changes with my new tonearm's VTA adjustment dial(never had one of those before) was not enough. I needed to grab and physically move the entire arm downward in larger increments to scotch a hardness/sharpness/metallic sound I was experiencing. It's still possible though, after further listening, that I may or not prefer a bit of a warmer sounding cartridge.

Otherwise: Larry, I've got all tube electronics---EAR 88PB phono preamp and Air Tight ATM-3 monoblock amps---and have been very satisfied with them.

Dougdeacon: The "excessive crispness" I was objecting to was (as I've indicated) a lot more than just that. It was also an "artifact" of my inexcusable unconsciousness. With some of your other comments, however, I must respectfully disagree. Frankly, I'm rather surprised with your assertion that I need to sit in "acoustically better halls...or acoustically better seats". Come on now, even if you've never visited or sat in the Concertgebouw or Musikverein, I'm sure you've heard or read about their renowned, warm sonics. There are other venues here that fit into the same category, and they would not likely be characterized as "*very* crisp and clear". Would you tell those who have enjoyed performances in these places where instruments sound more rounded that they need to go to crisper, clearer halls to properly enjoy music or hear it more "correctly"? I did not find fault with those who preferred a reproduced sound with clean, tight contours, but said I have not routinely encountered this sort of sound in concert perfomances I have attended. In fairness and reasonableness, maybe both of us could use a little broadening of our experiences regarding attendance at musical venues with contrasting sound personalities. Meanwhile, here's to our continuing enjoyment of our personal preferences in sound at home.

Oh yeah....and ah Jeff, before you go changing out cartridges, check to make sure you have the cartridge you have is set up correctly. LOL. Don't worry, I'm sure it's happened to all of us. Look at it this way, you just saved a bundle of $$$.

I started a thread on AA a few months back about how I blew out a tweeter on one of my speakers, since the high's just disappeared in one channel. After getting some replies I decided to see if there were any fuses in the crossover that might have blown. While lowering the speaker to the ground I noticed that the top negative speaker cable lead (bi-wire) had come loose. DUH!!! You have to laugh...haha.