Is this why my analog rig isn't so hot?

Hi George,
Wow? Hardly. ; )
As always, take any recomendation with a grain of salt. fyi- my range of recs reflect a somewhat less PRaT-oriented bias than I would personally choose for myself but more than those of the vast majority posting on this board.My thinking is that your requirements fall somewhere comfortably (and sanely) between round and flat-earths, favoring a direct,lucid,lively presence, with tonal purity, ease and authority- middle earth if you will.The decks mentioned still vary considerably in their presentations of music however.caveat emptor right attcha,dude. hehe

best,
k

George,
Also toss in the upper end Well Tempered decks to the mix.Often available used at reasonable prices.

best,
k

Dear George. As I already told you ( my first answer ) I think that the problem is in your electronics and that you are using a cartridge with the wrong internal impedance for your phonocube.
There are not such " general rule " in turntables about " nimble" sound. I have more than 35 years in testing analog rig and, beyond what Ken told us, the 70% to 80% of the quality of the sound reproduction comes from the tonearm/cartridge combo, here it is where we have to look which cartridge mates best with what tonearm. The Basis is a good turntable by any standards and it can't be the responsible for the high frecuency response problem. No I don't own a Basis turntable ( but I hear it many times ), I own severals turntables ( at least three of them of the high mass version ) and I can tell you that the TT is a very important link in the analog chain but not at the level that Ken told us.
Now, there are many issues on your high frecuency problem because any single link in your audio system chain is important: room, electronics, loudspeakers, cables, position of your loudspeakers, etc... You have to check before you move to other turntable. Right now you know that your electronics are truncated at the top end and that you are using a wrong internal impedance cartridge, so you have to evaluate any single part on your whole audio system for to know which will be your first move.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Raul,

I appreciate your comments and I am trying to help George. I wanted to alert him to another possible problem area before dishing out for a new cartridge or spending many futile hours with setup, after all you can't get blood from stone.

The systems that I heard these tables in is irrelevant, let's just say that I know them intimately. The Basis isn't a chameleon, it sounds that way all the time. I've heard the Graham and associated Benz cartridges in enough different setups to know how much of the sound is attributed to the arm and cartridge and how much to the table. I always check the setups carefully before listening and coming to any conclusions. But in this case there really isn't much to think about, the construction of the table tells all!

>>I ask to you ¿which will be your whole specific recomendation for George<<

Back to my initial posting to George; "take a step back and start over again with a new analog setup instead of wasting more time and money on this one."

Mama

Ken,

Thanks for giving us some examples of the tables you're comparing the Basis to. I am not familiar with the sound of many of these but at least I now I think I have a base to make some analysis for myself. I may be misinterpreting your preferences and please let me know if I am wrong here, but it seems to me that you would tend toward metal tables. Although you do mention that a Linn would be a good choice. But you also say that Teres should be avoided. Interesting given the well known testament of a long time Linn dealer about how much he loves his Teres, not to mention many other happy Teres owners. But to each his own. And that is what I, and I believe NGeorge, are trying to do. Learn and find out for ourselves.

As I said in a previous post, I have pretty much the same setup as NGeorge except that I have a Vector tonearm. I simply don't understand the characterizations that the table is dark and rolled off. Now my MMF 7, that's a different issue. :) But even with that table I can get very strong top end with good loading and VTA/VTF. Admittedly there are more tables and combinations that I have not heard than those that I have. That's why I bought my Basis combo recently. At slightly less than the retail of the arm alone it was too good to pass up. Most likely will not be the last table I own, but now I have one more tool in my toolbox to learn with.