Allnic Puritas vs. Koetsu Stone Body

I owned a Raven AC3 and now a BN. I use currently a Lyra Titan I with a
Schroder SQ. I have no desire to upgrade as it is a perfect match with my
phono the Thoress / TW. I also use mostly the Allaerts MC2 Finish with a
Pass XP25. Both setups are amazing and I am done looking for quite a
long time. That is major considering I owned several arms and cartridges
and nothing was ever perfect.

Phono stage is critical with cartridge matching and if you heard a cartridge
perform badly I doubt it is the turntable if the turntable does its job.
Tonearms of course need to match well with the arm.

I owned a Jade for a while and loved it. I was still on the merry go round
then and sold it due to lack of dynamics compared to some others. The
Allaerts easily betters it but the extremely low output demands a dead quiet
phono stage with a lot of gain. A solid state phono would be best. My
Pass for example. As for Tonearms, the best match I had at the time was
the Ikeda 12 inch. A variation of the FR go figure.

I loaned Jeff C my Jade years ago and he ended up buying one for his AC.
So the rumors of what Jeff feels about it don't add up. Back then he used it
with a Dynavector arm. I don't know now what he is using but I know he
loved it then. The Raven table has no bearing on the Koetsu sound. Yes to
the arm and again the phono. I think he used the Jade then with the high
gain version of a Tron with SUT.

TW loves a very alive sound, which is not a Koetsu forte. I don't see him
wanting one. Jeff on the other hand has his own sonic priorities and he
bought a Jade years ago although he wasn't a dealer.

Now for my personal opinion based on your system I would do either of 2
things. An Allaerts same as mine or better on a Raven 10.5 arm. It has the
some of the magic of Koetsu and beautiful detail and bass. But it will need
to match well with your phono which I feel is a risk.

The other is the Lyra Atlas with a Schroder. I am very curious to try that
myself. And the new Schroder LT seems very interesting. I have a strong
hunch it will have tremendous synergy with your Jadis. It is a medium
output MC which will also be less troubling.

In the end, please be ready to add your phono stage into the equation. I
currently have 2. During my merry go round time, I tested cartridges with
several phono stages and arms. I owned quite a few great ones, including
a preamp with a built in phono. Every cartridge sounded very different
depending on the phono stage.

Thank you very much for your input.

When I choosed the Raven AC I was considering BN turntable as well. Unfortunately I found them way too expensive and a bit too large for my system rack. When compared side by side stock Raven AC with Raven BN I found BN more detailed, more extended on top, more airy, simply better.
Then I have tried battery PSU from BN with Raven AC and found that this PSU has great contribution to BN sound.
So I decided to order Raven AC with upgraded battery PSU and feets from BN.
Now TW introduced three pulley integrated motor designed for Raven AC similar to those from BN.
Now after introducing Raven AC Anniversary turntable you can even upgrade stock AC to copper platter.
My point is that now a 95% of BN performance can be obtained for about 70% or the costs of original BN and this can be done step by step not at once.
OK. But this is only digression.

Back to the topic.
I have a possibility to make side by side comparison of Thores phonostage with Jadis JP80MC build in phoo stage.
Thoress is sonically better. Have much more adjustments flexibility and so on. However in sonic department there was no night and day difference especially when Jadis phono was paired with SUT and used with MM input.

As for the Schroeder tonearm it is very interestin option. I admire the Schroeder engineering, but there is definitely a problem with avaliability. The waiting time for their SQ tonearm was about a year or more!
It is hard to imagine for me these days. If there is such large customer demands, the smart manufacturer expandes their production capabilities not ask a buyer to wait so long. I do not know how the things going with LT tonearm.
The Frank designed Artemis Labs tonearm was much more obtainable, but heard that will be no longer offered by Artemis Labs.

As for the Allartes cartridge it is very interesting option and worth exploring.

Did you compared them with Atlas Lyra or Allnic Puritas?

Milimetr,

I enjoyed your digression. I have owned my BN since it came out. The Raven Anniversary is gorgeous and I would myself have gone that way just due to the ergonomics.

The battery PSU is a huge improvement. I have compared them side by side in my system. And the BN difference to the original AC is as you described.

Schroder is a piece of work. He comes from the watch industry which I know professionally. Quite a few brands limit production to create demand. Yes it is manual labor, yes it takes time. But Tonearms for $10K and where is the gold?

The problem is the Schroder Lyra match is something special. I own it now for years. You can see tons of posts by me here. I also have heard several setups with Lyras on Scroder arms and always have been impressed. I stopped changing arms before the latest round of wood arm copy cats came out. They might be good. The other idea which might be great is the Kuzma , Atlas combination. Lyra puts out a lot of energy and needs an arm that can handle it. And the Schroder is very difficult to set up. And, I am being nice in saying that, as very is based on years of experience.

I have never tried the Atlas or Allnic. But I owned a few Koetsus, Benz, Air Tight, VdH, Dynavector, and more. I just don't find a need to compare, when I find nothing lacking in my front end. If I had just 1 cartridge arm combination, then I probably would get back to searching. it is just that different music sounds different depending on the cartridge/arm used. not necessarily better, but more to the mood I am in.
I would never buy a cartridge from someone who rebrands it unless absolutely unique.

Lyra, Ortofon, Koetsu (but they are too delicate for the amount of money) and Dynavector are not equipment manufacturers first. They are primarily in the cartridge business. Some of the boutique brands are excellent as well as that is all they do. I just wouldn't buy a watch made by Porsche. Even though it might be excellent. I would much rather get a Breitling since that is what they do. But, I would consider some of the more limited production watches such as A. Lange etc.

Sorry to be late to the party, but I just bought a KRSP with Diamond Cantilever, and now have 41 hours on it.

I am using a Trans-Fi linear air bearing tonearm. Not the most expensive, certainly not the most chic, but highly functional. I like to use extra brass weights to manipulate arm mass and resonance, for which the arm is uniquely suited. Tracking seems very good, the combination only coming adrift during the organ bass tremolo on Power & Glory (M&K 114).

So far, I like the cartridge very much, worth every penny and more: an alloy of gold and silver, if you will. But then I like to play with a soldering iron to sort out primary and secondary impedances (Koetsu transformer), and I only use Vishay VAR resistors. I am still sorting out what I am hearing and why, so I have no considered opinions as yet. I suppose that is a warning of sorts; if you want to plug and play, you may not get these results.

A few preliminary observations, subject to change. The immediately obvious strengths of the cartridge seem to be low surface noise, large dynamic range, vertical transients, and purity. The highs are uniquely pure. A little less obvious was that pizzicato sounds like a plucked string, and a piano sounds like a struck string. I think this may be evidence of what some call "harmonic coherence". Both are reproduced well, although no recording has yet reproduced the percussive leading edge of the (real) piano upstairs. But then, my ownership is young, and many parameters need examination. Wish me luck.

A note on over-brightness: if you don't hear it on Bach's violin concerti, or on Barber's Adagio for Strings, or Arvo Part's Fratres, and none of your intimates do either, it isn't there.

Terry,

Enjoy! Wonderful cartridge. Be careful with it as they are delicate. Please don't use any liquid based stylus cleaners. The fluid can move. Up the cantilever and then......

Personal experience. Nothing like the highs of a Koetsu.