Curious Why Benz Micro Slid Into Obscurity
I remember there was a time when Benz Micro was one of the more prominent cartridge manufacturers out there. The Ace and Glider sure were popular cartridges. Then there was a hiatus in production. The company recognition seems to have never recovered. There are still new cartridges for sale on the various sites. But none of ther upper tier cartridges seem to gather the same recognition or praise that the earlier cartridges did.
Is perception of them changed that much, or is it the fact that the brand has aged out? Are the designs that dated to where people no longer believe quality and value are there?
IMHO Benz Gullwing beats Lyra Atlas Lamda SL, Clear Audio Goldfinger, Koetsu Blue Lace Diamond, Ortofon Verismo and its big brother Benz LP. In an ET 2 arm in the Oracle 6 the Gullwing exceeds those other great cartridges by a country mile. Deeper bass and lifelike presentation of a symphony orchestra in, ahem, full flight. * There's no body like no body. |
@mulveling Thank you for your description. After my Benz Ruby 3 wore out, It was a little anemic dynamically but beautiful sounding and tracked perfectly. I replaced it with a Dynavector 20X2 L. The Zesto Allesso (and others) SUT works great with the Dynavector but the Ruby always was very touchy in my system on the end of a highly moded SME IV arm as to impedance (220 ohms only). So, those five Dynavectors I owned prior to the Benz also avoided magnetic flux build-up in a way. Great to know and I will pass this info on to four friends who use Dynavectors. Also, Gullwing comparison to 2MBlack. My best friend Robert (also known as Mr. Record whose column appears in Pos Feedback) tried a 2M Black for a few months and gave up on it. It was great on 15% of his LPs and just bad on everything else. |
@mulveling So if I follow your comments are you saying that for use with my VAC Ren 5 internal phono stage using SUT, that I'd be better off with a Zebra L or Ebony L than an LPS if I want to try a Benz? Where do Delos and other Lyras fit in relative to this conversation? Perhaps it's fortunate that I'm using a Dynavector XX2 Mk2 given what you're addressing. Cheers, Spencer PS: Thank you for "thinking about this stuff too often"! |
Yes, I tried the LPS with Renaissance SE phono stage which has the same MC SUT inside as Ren V (also had a Ren V but did not use its onboard phono). Those Lundahl LL1931 worked OK on the 8x (lower) setting, but it was not my favorite. The VAC's MM stage is really wonderful, and the suboptimal MC match on LPS holds it back IMO. Just to be clear the LPS sound this way isn't bad, it's just not where I wanted it to be; I preferred Ebony L on this setup. For my preferences I got better LPS results from the Hagerman Trumpet MC, or even the Hagerman Piccolo (a JFET based step-up with flexible gain & loading) set at 26dB gain and 1K Ohm load into the VAC's MM mode (under $300 just to pick up a new Piccolo to try). Note the weakness of these Hagerman units a higher noise floor versus higher end MC JFET stages like a Herron or ARC Reference (and definitely versus a SUT). From everything I've read, and all my experience with other Benz's (the Glider SL with similar body is wonderful, one of my favorites), I'm almost certain I'd prefer the Gullwing model over LPS. Maybe by a lot. However its electrical matching issues will be the same as LPS. That is high praise indeed given your list of comparisons!! |
