Hi Artar1,
From your cartridge lists I've only heard the Shelter 901, which I own, so I'll spare you any guesses.
I will offer this however: add a ZYX cartridge to your second list. An R100 Fuji ($2k list) will thoroughly outclass a Shelter 901, particularly for the kind of music you and I listen to. It is in quite another league for accurate groove tracing and transparency to the music and musicians. The 901 is a fine cartridge and very exciting. But it doesn't play tough inner grooves cleanly and eventually it becomes fatiguing. It's a bit full of itself and lacks the subtlety to bring classical and small group jazz musicians to life. The ZYX is self-effacing and ravishingly subtle, if that makes any sense. It's shockingly dynamic when the musicians are dynamic, but never otherwise. Sorry for suggesting a slight budget buster, but if you saved a few extra months to get one I believe you'd thank me. :-)
Regarding the Teres 245, you can buy it fully finished in cocobolo for $2775 if you like. If you go for the $2425 in unfinished rosewood then only final sanding for a smooth finish would be required. It's not like they ship you a hand-hewn hunk o' wood. To my mind, an hour of sanding and a few coats of stain/finish, steps which you'd only have to perform once, would be well repaid by the years of pleasure. YMMV of course.
Rather than look at what you don't get with a 245 look what you do: a TT that few if any competitors can match for under $4000. Few if any $3-4K tables from mainstream manufacturers will match a 245 for solidity, dynamics, quietness and speed accuracy. The question is not, "Why does an unfinished Teres cost so much?". The question is, "Why do other tables that perform at its level cost 2-3x more?". You won't find a TT motor, controller, bearing, plinth or platter to match the 245's for anywhere near the price.
Just my $.02, enjoy the hunt! |
Three other ideas:
If a 245 is too much, take a look at the 160. The plinth isn't quite at the 200 series level, but the lead-weighted platter *might* make up a lot of the difference. I haven't heard a 150/160 so that's just an idea, not a recommendation. You do get the exact same bearing, platter, motor and controller however, first class components all.
Keep an eye on the Teres "Scratch 'n' Dent" page. Chris gets trade-ins from time to time and you might find a deal.
If you want better VTA/SRA adjustment than the fiddly OL ring, the Teres VTA adjuster works much better. That's something you can add down the road if you're not sure about it up front. |
Alright already! I remembered, I remembered. Whad'ja expect from a classical-loving dinosaur?
Classical is a particularly tough challenge for a system. Even jazz is easy by comparison, and pop/rock are a cake walk. Natural instrumental and voice timbres are hard to get right, and painful when they're wrong. Throw in a dynamic range that can go from complete silence in one breath to house-shaking crescendoes in the next. Then expect your system to differentiate an oboe from a viola from an alto solist when Bach has all three doubling on the same line in the middle of it all.
Funny thing is, vinyl does it so much better than the best digital I've heard that it's not even close. Unfortunately, it's not even cheap either. ;-) Damn TWL and his advice. I should have retired with my Bose 901's and zip cord. Now I'll have to work two jobs until I'm about 90. |
Cmk,
Is the Schroeder 2 still available? I thought he'd consolidated the line. One person I know with a Schroeder 2 and TriPlanar IV prefers the 2, so I assume it has much of the sonic neutrality of the Reference. That would be a good thing.
Artar 1,
To respond directly to one of your old questions, the SME 309 was designed for higher compliance catridges. It is too light to be a good match for a ZYX and would be even worse for a Shelter. I suppose a 312 would work with a ZYX, as would a IV or V.
FWIW, I've been spinning vinyl on my own TT's since 1967, and on my parents' since about 1959. Again, people like TWL have experience with a much wider array of high end gear. For those keeping track, we're up to 14 months with our current rig. Please adjust your barbs accordingly! ;-) |
Artar, Thanks for the kind words. Just to keep things in perspective, TWL's dog knows more about analog than I do. I just try to help where I can. Re: tonearms As he said, if you're using a Denon 103x or Shelter, a Moerch DP-6 seems more viable than a Hadcock. I've heard Shelters on a unipivot that's better stabilized than a Hadcock. Compared with good dual-bearing arms the unipivot didn't cope as well. These cartridges feed a ton of energy back into an arm. Given your uncertainty about cartridges, the DP-6's interchangeable armwands give it an attractive flexibility. There's a downside to that however. Breaks and connectors in the armwire degrade the sound of this very delicate signal. While I haven't heard a Moerch, all the best arms I have heard use a single run of wire from cartridge clips to phono stage. The arm TWL suggested has that, and pretty good wire too. Personally I wouldn't want an interrupted arm wire for higher end MC use. Speaking generally, the higher up the MC ladder you climb the lower the output levels get. This makes the armwire ever more critical. Re: cartridges I doubt you'd find a Helikon satisfying. No one has ever suggested it has warmish mids, or warmish anything. The opposite has been said too many times to count. The ZYX R100 Fuji has a *list* price of $2K. You shouldn't pay that. The ZYX dealer right here on Audiogon sells it for $1500. For your sonic preferences and music types it's an easy winner vs. a Shelter 901 IMO. A $1500-ish cartridge is in the future anyway, right? Keep your eyes on this forum. In a few weeks I expect to be offering the opportunity to demo my Shelter 901 in your own system at a very nominal cost. Once your rig is up and running you might want to give it a listen. IMPORTANT: check out this review of the R100 Fuji's little brother, the R100H. http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue15/zyx.htmList is $995 and our Audiogon dealer sells it for $800. The reviewer describes several cartridges you're interested in. His descriptions of cartridges I've heard tally with my impressions. He makes the R100H sound like a clone of my $3000 Airy2, with which it shares the best tracking and tracing stylus I've ever heard. If his review is even close to accurate, this cartridge should go to the top of your first shortlist. |
Hey, no question there are better systems than mine. There are better systems than Twl's too. And Jphii's. And Cmk's. So what? How does stating this obvious fact help Artar 1 select a cartridge? Should he ignore the experiences of everyone but the one person in the world who owns your idea of the perfect system? Spare us your arrogance.
The impressions I've posted of our ZYX have been confirmed by every review that's been published in print, online or by private owners. The review I linked to above is just one among many.
The Fuji supplanted the Shelter 901 in Arthur Salvatore's system for the very same musical reasons that the Airy2 supplanted the Shelter 901 in ours.
Rushton recently told us that, "Lloyd Walker was very complimentary of the ZYX "Airy" model that you have. He said he liked many things about it and that it would possibly be his second choice to the Magic Diamond cartridge that he sells and that I use. From Lloyd, that is high praise."
My equalizers are in pretty good company, and that IS useful information for Artar 1. :-)
I own both a Shelter and a ZYX. I know what they sound like. Do you? If so please tell us. |
BTW to Artar 1,
Just so you know where I'm coming from with the ZYX recommendation, if you listened to hard rock, techno, punk, electronica or the like, I'd recommend the Shelter 901 over a ZYX any day. Like some forum members, it's a bit of a head-banging character itself. ;-)
"Equalized" or not, the differences between these two cartridges are easy to hear. For the natural reproduction of acoustic instruments and voices, a ZYX is a better choice, assuming appropriate arm, phono stage, etc.
AFAIK, TWL listens to different music than you and I. Not surprising that he likes a different cartridge. Quite reasonable. |
Artar 1,
I haven't heard a Moerch so I can't speak about its sound, except to note that one possible limitation. Obviously Raul likes it and he's heard a lot of arms. It certainly finds its way onto a lot of high quality rigs. Ditto for the Shelter 501 BTW. It's okay with me if you buy one! :-)
The OL Encounter has an effective mass of 14g. Excellent for Shelter, Denon, Koetsu. Probably okay for ZYX though borderline. My arm has 11g effective mass and its a perfect match for a ZYX judging by resonance frequencies. (These can be easily measured with the HFN&RR test record.) An Encounter/ZYX would resonate near the bottom of the "ideal" 8-12 Hz range. What kind of floors and TT support will you have? The more stable the floor and support the less a slightly low resonance frequency is likely to matter.
Good that you're doing your research on the ZYX and other carts. Dudley's Airy review seemed more positive to me than your characterization. Remember how he kept saying things like, "Many of you will rush out right now"? The flaws or shortcomings he listed at the end were IMO precisely due to the weaknesses of the three rigs he tested it on. (He partly used a Rega P3 for pete's sake. That's beyond ridiculous.) This review and another one he did of the Galibier Quattro were discussed here recently at some length. Search and ye shall find!
I only vaguely remember Fremer's review. I vividly remember Arthur Salvatore's. Despite his abrasive style, I trust Salvatore's ears and skills more than Fremer's. When he describes something I've heard, I generally agree with his description. The only way one could be "underwhelmed" by the Airy2 is if it were poorly set up, poorly matched or if (as Raul correctly likes to say) one prefers something other than the sound of natural instruments and voices.
The Shelter 901 was the cartridge du jour last year and the year before. That's why I bought one for my first MC. Since then I've heard it side by side with top Koetsus and my ZYX. The Koetsu's slightly burnish the leading and trailing edges of every waveform. This gives them that fabled, gentle warmth or glow, which is indeed seductive if not quite accurate. The 901 does the opposite in a sense. It overshoots on leading edges, which slightly etches the edges of everything and makes it all sound a touch over the top. Very exciting, very detailed, not at all warmish in any respect whatsoever (except on a Schroeder Reference. That combo was magical).
I've only heard your ML's once, and that in a shop with a poor setup. Even worse, they were brand new and certainly not broken in. I'll trust your characterizaton of course. (BTW, do you hear a disconnect between the bass drivers and the midrange/treble. I thought I did but I was only there for a minute.) If the ML's are the slightest bit bright or edgy or tizzy, a Shelter 901 may emphasize that. A Koetsu will round it off a bit. A ZYX will play it pretty much straight down the middle, nothing emphasized but nothing hidden either.
BTW, there's a good chance my 901 will be available for a cheap demo in your home fairly soon. Keep your eyes pealed to this forum. That would be worth more than all this talk!
Tonearm mass and cartridge compliance are normally shown in the manufacturer's specs. Formulas for *estimating* the resonance frequency of any particular combo can be found by searching at VA. |
Artar 1,
I haven't heard a Moerch so I can't speak about its sound, except to note that one possible limitation. Obviously Raul likes it and he's heard a lot of arms. It certainly finds its way onto a lot of high quality rigs. Ditto for the Shelter 501 BTW. It's okay with me if you buy one! :-)
The OL Encounter has an effective mass of 14g. Excellent for Shelter, Denon, Koetsu. Probably okay for ZYX though borderline. My arm has 11g effective mass and its a perfect match for a ZYX judging by resonance frequencies. (These can be easily measured with the HFN&RR test record.) An Encounter/ZYX would resonate near the bottom of the "ideal" 8-12 Hz range. What kind of floors and TT support will you have? The more stable the floor and support the less a slightly low resonance frequency is likely to matter.
Good that you're doing your research on the ZYX and other carts. Dudley's Airy review seemed more positive to me than your characterization. Remember how he kept saying things like, "Many of you will rush out right now"? The flaws or shortcomings he listed at the end were IMO precisely due to the weaknesses of the three rigs he tested it on. (He partly used a Rega P3 for pete's sake. That's beyond ridiculous.) This review and another one he did of the Galibier Quattro were discussed here recently at some length. Search and ye shall find!
I only vaguely remember Fremer's review. I vividly remember Arthur Salvatore's. Despite his abrasive style, I trust Salvatore's ears and skills more than Fremer's. When he describes something I've heard, I generally agree with his description. The only way one could be "underwhelmed" by the Airy2 is if it were poorly set up, poorly matched or if (as Raul correctly likes to say) one prefers something other than the sound of natural instruments and voices.
The Shelter 901 was the cartridge du jour last year. That's why I bought one for my first MC. Since then I've heard it side by side with top Koetsus and my ZYX. The Koetsu's slightly burnish the leading and trailing edges of every waveform. This gives them that fabled, gentle warmth or glow, which is indeed seductive if not quite accurate. The 901 does the opposite in a sense. It overshoots on leading edges, which slightly etches the edges of everything and makes it all sound a touch over the top. Very exciting, very detailed, not warm in any respect whatsoever (except on a Schroeder Reference. That combo was magical. Cmk's suggestion of the 2 should be taken seriously).
I've only heard your ML's once, and that in a shop with a poor setup. Even worse, they were brand new and certainly not broken in. I'll trust your characterizaton of course. (BTW, do you hear a disconnect between the bass drivers and the midrange/treble. I thought I did but I was only there for a minute.) If the ML's are the slightest bit bright or edgy or tizzy, a Shelter 901 may emphasize that. A Koetsu will round it off a bit. A ZYX will play it pretty much straight down the middle, nothing emphasized but nothing hidden either.
BTW, there's a good chance my 901 will be available for a cheap demo in your home fairly soon. Keep your eyes pealed to this forum. That would be worth more than all this talk!
Tonearm mass and cartridge compliance are normally shown in the manufacturer's specs. Formulas for *estimating* the resonance frequency of any particular combo can be found by searching at VA. |
If the Shelter 901 sounds over the top in your system, how do you think it would sound in mine? I will have to pass on this cartridge. Did different loadings have any effect? Did you try a lower resistance setting to try to soften the top end? Yes, I've tried quite fine impedance adjustments. Our stepup tranniess have resistor terminals built in, so I can change cartridge loading in a few seconds to any value I choose. With the 901 we tried values from 19 ohms to 50 before settling on 38. This was with a HIFI modded OL Silver. When we changed arms the optimal load for the 901 changed to 37.5 ohms, no doubt due a slight difference in arm cables. For the ZYX Airy, I started at 10 ohms, because this gives a similar ratio of impedance load to internal cartridge impedance as 38 ohms does for a Shelter 901. This seems to be pretty nearly ideal in our system. The slight brightness or etched-ness of the 901 cannot be tamed by loading it down, unless you suppress the highs altogether I suppose. We heard it through Cello's Supratek Cortese at 500, 100 and 50 ohms. It's audible in my very different system at any listenable load. As Soliver says, it's just in the nature of the cartridge. It's a kind of ringing or resonance that causes the 901 to slightly over-emphasise detail and surface noise, and throws everything to the front. The ZYX lets truly quiet passages play as soft as a mouse. The 901 doesn't know how to do that. |
Nice work. Those calculated values will vary slightly in reality, though probably not enough to matter. It's useful to actually see how a cartridge like a Grado or Music Maker would put you slightly below the ideal range. Obviously most of the other carts would work on the Encounter, though I guess we know which one you're starting with! I predict much musical happiness. FYI, that ZYX compliance figure of 15 x10-6cm/dyne is for the lateral mode only. For vertical resonance the compliance is slightly lower, 12 x10-6cm/dyne, so it would resonate at a slightly higher frequency. This provides better isolation from primarily vertical vibrations like warps, footfalls, etc. You didnt respond about the sonic degradation that one might expect with detachable arm tubes. Perhaps the loss of fidelity would be small for most people, but for those who have considerable experience, it could be a small problem with top quality, low-output MCs. The only good arm I've heard with a non-continuous cable run is the Graham 2.2. I think the Schroeder Reference, TriPlanar and Basis Vector all better it, but since these arms differ in many other materials and design respects it's impossible to say how much the single run of wire matters. You'd have to compare identical arms with a single run and a broken one. You're welcome to listen to a TriPlanar any time you're in CT, but please don't approach it with scissors and a soldering iron! ;-) Enjoy your new rig (I know you will). I predict your CDP will be gathering dust. Don't forget to look into record cleaning. You'll need a machine. More money. :-( |
Hmmm, maybe I'll visit CA and borrow your scissors and soldering iron. We could always test on the Encounter! ;-)
Please do let us know when everything arrives and you've got it spinning. Take care with the Teres bearing assembly BTW. That's about the only step where it's easy to do damage to the TT. Once it's together it's about as set-and-forget as a TT can be. |
Artar 1,
Excellent narrative of the process most of us have to go through when choosing a vinyl front end these days. With so few dealers left it's nearly impossible to see, touch or hear most of the legitimate contenders, especially in the middle to higher price ranges.
I thoroughly agree with you regarding MDF. By far the weakest component in our system is the Salamander Synergy rack. Top, bottom and shelves are all MDF. Decently veneered and finished MDF, but as you say it's still just glorified sawdust. Our rack choices were sharply limited by visual concerns (there's that conflict again). It's sitting in our living room, where an open rack of audio gear was simply not acceptable.
The MDF top and shelves are much too ringy for best audio performance. Frank Schroeder recently commented that the length of fibers in MDF is too short for optimal damping behavior, compared to the long fibers in his wooden armtubes or, one supposes, in the hardwood base of a Teres. The base and platter of my 265 are far less resonant than the shelf it's sitting on.
Eagerly awaiting your chapter two... |
Harry once offered to ship me one of his new 300rpm motors tweaked to drive a Teres, just for an A/B. I promised him a fair review that would include some non-Teres-owning audio friends to insure balance.
Then VPI introduced the ScoutMaster and got swamped with orders from real customers. You know, the kind that send money.
I expect I fell right off Harry's back burner and behind the stove with the other dust bunnies. Too bad, it would have been instructive. |
Like Twl said, it's easy to demonstrate and I've done exactly what he described - though mostly by accident. I ordered my Teres, OL Silver and Shelter 901 all at the same time, but the cartridge showed up first. Being as impatient as any other little kid with a new toy, I mounted the 901 on my old low-fi/mid-fi rig, an HK/Rabco ST-8.
It would be difficult to imagine a less suitable rig for a 901 than that, though I think Artar 1's friend with the Koetsu Tiger Eye Platinum/Denon DP-500MX gets the prize for most absurd pairing. At any rate, the 901 sounded damned impressive compared to the ADC XLM MkII that it replaced, duh, but only when it was mounted on the Teres/OL did it really perform near its full capabilites. On the cheap rig I wasn't hearing more than 1/3 of what the cartridge was capable of. For the few weeks until the Teres arrived, I had paid $1500 to hear $500 worth of cartridge.
The table/arm/cartridge hierarchy should not be overdone of course. Once you get to about a $4K table (Teres 265), the diminishing returns curve really flattens out. At that point your next multi-thousand $ upgrade will buy the most improvement if spent on a top quality arm. Going from a $4K Teres to a $6K Teres will be audible of course, but less so than going from a $1K arm to a $3K one. As Twl advised above, it's important to maintain balance. "Table first" does not mean "table above all else". |
Letch, If you go with any Schroeder below the Reference, one advantage of a Teres would be CB's arm height adjuster. If optimizing SRA turns out to be important for you it's a much better solution than the set screw and sliding post method. Some of Salectric's Galibier/Teres distinctions are worth a second look: the Galibier accomodates 12" arms and it also allows two tonearms to be fitted easily, A Teres accommodates 12" arms just as easily as a Galibier. Both brands have free-swivelling armboards. A two-armboard Teres is available, though it is a special order. Galibier does win that one. I read a number of accounts of problems with the Teres motor controller, and I was skeptical of the whole servo control concept I had a controller problem a few weeks after I received my Teres. CB overnighted a completely new motor/controller unit, which gave me the $100 Signature upgrade for free. I'm not personally aware of any controller problems since the Signature and Reference series came out last year. Even if Teres closed its doors tomorrow, the readily available schematics and parts list make it possible for any electronics technician to repair or even build a Teres controller from scratch. The benefit of self-regulating platter speed is obvious, DC motor speed creep will never be an issue. The music is always in the same key at the end of a side as it was at the beginning! ;-) It seems that a Teres/Galibier decision must usually be made on aesthetics, budget and these relatively few features differences. No one who's heard both has said that either sounds clearly better than the other. Maybe Dan_Ed should add a Galibier to his Basis/Teres shootout. Go Dan go! |
Artar 1 to Twl: Nice point! You should be an audio dealer! ROFL!!! Artar, do you really think this quality of advice comes from an amateur? Or did you forget the ;-)? On the TT/arm/cartridge hierarchy thing, I was fiddling with cartridges this weekend and thought I'd try the opposite extreme from the cheap TT/expensive cartridge mismatch, just for haha's. While switching from one fancy MC to another I slipped my old ADC XLM MkII in the system. Now this was about as ridiculous as the Koetsu Tiger Eye/Denon setup. $3900 TT, $3900 tonearm, 25-year-old MM cartridge that was about $140 back in the day. (It does have a fairly low-hours stylus, though it hasn't been used in about 18 months.) I gave the old XLM quite a scare. First, she got mounted on this high-falutin rig. Then I brought out the alignment protractor. She had never seen one of those before, and she didn't like it one bit! Crookedest cantilever I've ever seen but there was enough play in the slots to line things up, more or less. I pulled out some backup copies of one or two LPs and -OOPS! Don't forget to bypass the stepups. Can you say overload? So how did this nonsensical mismatch sound. Damned impressive! Having lived with three top quality MC's the weaknesses were obvious of course, no highs, not much bass, kinda slow and sludgy. But it was also dynamic, musical and very listenable. If I had never heard the MC's I might go some time with the XLM before noticing what was missing. Without coaching him I asked Paul which idiotic mismatch he'd rather live with, this cheap cartridge/expensive rig or the Shelter 901/cheap rig we listened to for a couple of weeks before our Teres showed up. With no hesitation he pointed at the good rig/cheap cartridge combo. "This makes music," he said, "the Shelter just showed up the flaws of the inadequate TT and arm." It was silly, but it was fun to demonstrate the truth of the hierarchy Twl recommends. Balance is best of course, but if you must mismatch for a time, get the best rig you can afford and skimp (to a point) on the cartridge. |
Dan_ed,
So you want to buy a lightly used ADC XLM MkII? You'll be even less disappointed, I guarantee it! ;-) |
What does ROFL mean? Is it like ROTC? Rolling On Floor Laughing, which I'm now doing again of course. Now you have to work out ROFLMAO. I think its fairly obvious that Twl is very knowledgeable, but I dont know how he came by that knowledge. Some amateurs are quite talented. Maybe Twl is one of them. But apparently he is not an amateur so it would be interesting to learn about his background as well as yours. So start talking
: > ) Not me! And thanks for the very informative experiment you ran this week. But the very things you described missing in the expensive turntable/tonearm combination used with a cheap cartridge no highs, not much bass, kinda slow and sludgy are some of the attributes of the Koetsu Tiger Eye/Denon setup, except I didnt really hear slowness and sludge. Hmmmm? Well, that's probably the 25 year old cart and 10 year old suspension. It was musical though, with no extraneous noise from the TT of course. How was the Koetsu/Denon setup in that respect? |
... every single choice you make as an audiophile will have plusses and minuses. It is up to you to select equipment which has the plusses in the areas of most importance to you, and has the minuses in the areas of least sensitivity to you. This is the crux of assembling a satisfying system that will meet your needs as a listener, and it is also why there are so many different ideas of what is "best". That should be required reading for each of us, every day. Could we get A'gon to paste it at the top of the screen next to their logo? |
Glorious golden goo you mean, and a shower would definitely be in order! I've heard two good Koetsu's on a Teres (RSP and Urushi). A ZYX sounds more like real music to me, YMMV.
Nice description though. You painted a good picture of this guy's setup and it ain't pretty. Carver Amazing Cubes? Midrange tone controls? Pity he wasted so much dough on a cartridge. He could have gotten better sound for half the money by asking Twl or the guys at the Analog Room.
Meet you at the Plinth & Platter for a Pint? |
Actually, the largest impact is provided by the musicians.
Therefore your largest expenditures should go to them.
:-) |
Artar 1,
Congratulations on working through your decision process in a way that not only gives you comfort, but even someone to blame! I haven't actually heard any of the components you chose, but I get credit for the nice wood finish, right? :)
Since I own a close relative of each of your choices I predict much musical satisfaction and happiness. |
According to Twl, who should know, an Encounter is barely better than a HIFI-modded Silver, which sells for nearly $600 less. In your present circumstnces that seems like an even more reasonable solution. |
Another insightful post Twl. Listen to him folks, he knows of what he speaks. For maximum performance from an unsuspended table... That squishy bit is best which squishes least, which finally amounts to this, that squishy bit is best which squishes not at all. (Apologies to Jefferson and Thoreau!) If your goal is maximum performance... Generally, when you start "pushing the envelope" in dynamics and resolution, then the "warts" of the system start to show themselves more negatively. This can be irritating to some people, and they prefer to damp down the system to cover up the warts from showing. That is pretty common these days. Very true, though rather sad. I think alot of people are so traumatized by the problems they hear with RBCD that they can't bear the thought of more resolution. To them, that just means more sonic pain. This is a pity, since vinyl is capable of breathtaking micro-dynamics and resolution without such pain. It's just very hard to do, and unfortunately very expensive too. We still enjoy pushing that envelope, but it gets harder as a system advances. You do learn more this way of course. If you can do this while still enjoying the music it's extremely rewarding. If you're just chasing detail for its own sake, "Wow! Did you hear that?", it may not be. |
Should it break, I will replace it for free(it happened once during shipping and the only other incident involved a parrot...) I have no more problems with parrots. The two cats took of them! Doug (Schroeder admirer with no liklihood of buying any time soon, unfortunately!) |
Much like Goldilocks, I'm looking for "just right". Good analogy. Aren't we all?! Paul and I are currently reviewing two ZYX cartridges, the Airy2 and Airy3, with a third model possibly to follow. Without spilling the beans I can say that in one sonic particular we'd both occasionally prefer something in between, at least for certain records. Paul said he'd like a 2.7, I'd prefer a 2.8! ;-) Seriously enough, this small difference shows that individual preferences do matter. Oddly, if we'd tried to predict in advance which direction each of us would lean, we both would have predicted the opposite direction from the one I just joked about. Try as we all do to communicate our musical and sonic impressions in words, there's no substitute for hearing. The Schroeder is a well-respected arm. If you have your heart set on it, you might as well get it. But it does look a little temperamental and perhaps somewhat difficult to install. The Reference is certainly no more difficult to install than any other arm. You have to fine tune the adjustments of course, as with any good arm, but once set up it looked perfectly stable to me. I didn't perceive anything "tempermental" about it. It does have a certain delicacy that takes getting used to. There's no finger lift or armtube lock! It's not an arm for the fumble-fingered or careless. The arm itself is robust enough but cantilevers are not. Since the arm is not locked when sitting on the armrest, I'd keep the stylus guard on at all times. That's about the only risk I could see. |
