Moving coil with a bit less leading edge

Live orchestral music indoors in a decent hall has always sound incredibly clear and crisp to me and leading edges have never sounded rounded off. I regularly attend the Boston Symphony Orchestra but other orchestras in other hall also sound that way. Boston Symphony Hall happens to have particularly good acoustics.

I agree with the suggestion above, that if you are hearing leading edges that hurt your ears, that are too much or cause fatigue, then perhaps it is some kind of artifact somewhere in the chain. A softer cartridge will hide the problem, but it will obscure other musical information in the process and probably will not give you long term musical satisfaction. If it were me, I would buy the most neutral and resolving cartridge I could afford and investigate what is causing the problem with your aggressive leading edges.

It could very well be cartridge loading, cartridge set up or any number of things down stream.

Guys, don't you think it's possible for music in a good hall to sound crisp AND for a given cartridge to over-exaggerate the leading edge of transients, moreso than in nature (or in a great concert hall)? Both propositions can be correct.

Sadly and paradoxically, the word "neutral" must remain forever subjective.

Sadly and paradoxically, the word "neutral" must remain forever subjective.

Indeed. Just as one person's derogatory "round" is another's exemplary "natural," and one person's "resolving" is another's "aggressive." Most of us believe our system tells the truth when, ultimately, it reflects our taste. And that's perfectly okay. But sometimes it's good to remember that we all hear and enjoy differently, and that this hobby is an exercise in aesthetics, not epistemology. A judgement of taste may feel like it should be true for everyone, as Kant says, but it can only be subjective. So Opus, just find yourself a cartridge that suits your taste and don't worry about the rest.

I second Peterayer's comments. And I'm surprised that the thread reached nearly 40 posts before the word "loading" was mentioned.

The first things that come to my mind upon reading the description of the symptoms are overshoot and ringing. I see that the EAR 88PB phono stage/preamp uses SUT's at its inputs. Which suggests to me that a loading mismatch could cause the response of the cartridge or the transformer or both to overshoot and ring in response to high speed transients, overemphasizing them unnaturally and causing them to be fatiguing. Or if the ringing is at ultrasonic frequencies, it may cause side-effects in downstream circuitry that are at audible frequencies. And as Pete suggested, comparable effects could conceivably result from other causes at other places in the signal path.

Not sure what specific course of action to suggest, but those are some thoughts to consider.

Regards,
-- Al

Many of the sounds I hear at a live orchestral concert seem
to speak with an effortless and supple voice. There is a
more complex and complete sense of richness and ambient
tonality. I often hear a more fluid, freer kind of
presentation with violins. With higher pitched wind
instruments like piccolos, their pungent or piercing sounds
come across as somewhat more listenable, not quite as sharp
than they might with reproduced music. Both hard and soft
sounds from the piano also seem to present more information
in more listenable and enjoyable fashion. Perhaps what I'm
trying to say is when I hear live orchestral instruments
being expressed either individually or collectively, it is
that combination of complex tonalities radiating outward in
different directions so freely that gives me the
impression of fuller, more complete sound that I have a
tendency to describe as rounded. Maybe too it's the less
than pinpoint presentation compared with reproduced music
that further reinforces my impression. Though it doesn't
seem so to me, some might feel I would be misusing the word
rounded here. Otherwise, I may have become somewhat
suspicious the term crisp, since I've fairly often seen it
used in association with sounds I would interpret as brittle
or stiff rather than firm. Perhaps differences in hearing
are playing a part here.

Wrm57: I think you say it very well!