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New cart for under 1K

I am looking to buy a new cartrdige for my setup. My current system consists of a VPI Scout II with a Black Knight platter and 10.5SE tonearm (the TT Michael Fremer demonstrated a cartridge setup at last years show in NYC), JM Focal 936's, Mac solid state power & pre, and a Dynavector P-75 phono pre-amp. The Focal's are very accurate and tend to be bright in the highs. Brightness is what I am trying to avoid. I've found the highs to be too harsh for my liking, especially with vocals. Sibilance is also an issue and something I have attempted to control with speaker placement, VTA, damping fluid, and the tone controls on my old Mac preamp. My current cart is a Grado Gold. I am hopeful that upgrading to a new cartridge helps eliminate some of the treble harshness and provides a sweeter overall sound. I'm interested in the Dynavector 20x2 so far. Any other suggestions for 1K or under, Benz, Ortofon, Sumiko (Blackbird, a little over 1K, but what the hell)?

Thanks for you assistance!
davidlillis
davidlillis OP
27 posts
 
Jkorkten,

Definitely interested, what Harbeth model/price?

David
jkorten
36 posts
 
BTW - the comment about metal dome tweeters being harsh is nonsense. The Harbeth SHL5 uses metal tweeters and the high end is gorgeous.
jjrenman
279 posts
 
So you found a speaker with a metal dome teweeter that is not harsh. I'll bet you that there are far more speakers with metal domes that are considered "bright", "edgy" or "harsh" than are not.

BTW, the tweeter in the Harbeth is one of the few metal domes that is excellent. I believe it to be a Seas and it has been used succesively in some of the best speakers over the past twenty years. However if you look closely at it you will see that they use a clear "acoustic lens" on the back side of the grill to block the ringing that leads to a harsh high frequencies.
davidlillis OP
27 posts
 
Turns out my favorite dealer, In Living Stereo now sells Spendor but stopped selling Harbeth. There are not any Proac dealers anywhere near me so over the course of the next couple of weeks I'm going to listen to the Spendor's and the Harbeth's. I listened to a pair of Monitor Audio's and Atom's over this past weekend and thought the MA's were nice but missing something and the Atom's were not good at all (IMO). I've read quite a bit regarding the Spendor's and the Harbeth's and think it's basically going to come down to my ears and what I like. so the search continues, I'll keep everyone posted on what I like.

Thanks again everyone for all the input.
davidlillis OP
27 posts
 
Hey everyone, since we kind of got off topic in this thread where it has turned more towards speakers than a cart for under 1K, I'm going to start a new post named, "New Speakers for under 5K"

Thanks again for all your help.

David
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