Hey Oz. Yes, I understand the logic behind your post regarding the so called grado house sound.Many people identify with grado from their experience's with the older signature series and perhaps the newer midpriced woodbodies like the reference platinum and sonata. At that level I would concur with your assessment of the benz's bass resolution and transparency in the lower octave and a half. Trackability speaking... I rather doubt the benz would outtrack the grado in the appropriate tonearm and furthermore.... The grado is much more suited to a lot more tonearms than any model benz. I suppose it would depend on what level of each company's cartridge models one is using for comparing apples to apples. Personally speaking.... I have never really been a fan of the Grado sound and have always preferred various mc cartridges for more than 20+ years. From supex, koetsu, various fidelity research's, denons and Benz. While I believe the Platinum and Sonata woodies are decent sounding cartridges at their respective pricepoints.... I also believe the more expensive [$1200] reference statement and their flagship Statement cartridges are truly world class reference cartridges that are at a whole higher order of magnitude superior to their lower priced bretheren and can state in all honesty that they do "not" sound like your familiar Grado House sound.Although I have heard a lot of the Benz models, I have not heard them in my own systems other than the benz h20... Im my rigs using either an et2, David Fletcher's "THE ARM", or a 12" stax unipivot [with the carbon fibre arm tube] the Grado signature wins in every dep't including bass articulation and resolution. My Melco Table employs 2 arms and I can compare the cartridges head to head within seconds. The top two grados are magnificent cartridges any way which you want to slice it and can compete with the big guys in any high resolution phono stage..
