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.

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.

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.

The fluid can damage the suspension & dry it out. Be careful is all. Use a tiny drop if any on a brush that only touches the stylus. Check here for wat people do.

Off line is fine. A chat would be more in order, I can give you my full experience and you can take it from there. If you get the LT I want to come over. That is the only arm that has me curious.

In a nut shell I love my Pass. But it took time. Amazing bass on the Pass. Simply amazing.