Field coil dava cartridge

Great to hear, Newton.

will be good to see how it compares to the Lambda as that is the first Lyra cart I liked (Olympos is also good but Lamda more extended).

Will be good to hear your findings

 interesting that you have Kondo silver cable which is what the Kondo arm does with SME. I mentioned in my Sigma MAAT report a guy who regularly changes his tone arm cable to Kondo in SME arms

I normally don't post much on the Gon (no particular reason just not used to it), but Raul messaged me on my zero distortion blog and pointed me to this thread. reading the thread he already seems to have taken one of my statements out of context (DaVa ticks most of the boxes) and dismissed me as having heard the frequency response anomaly and not realized it. 

In his message he pointed out that CS Port is an LT and so will be different. There was no mention there that the Etsuro was also on the NVS with a pivot. (nor did he take into account that I have recently, over the past few months, written more on linear trackers than anyone/most on other forums, including a detailed write up on my blog on Vyger). 

He did not take into account my previous exposure with DaVa. Also, there is a detailed thread on WBF from other users if you want other data points

From what I understand Raul likes Allaerts. I do too. Great cart. DaVa is better. Raul in this thread recommended another user the Top Wing Blue Dragon. The top wing red sparrow, when done right, is my favorite cart along with the DaVa, but it usually sounds wrong in many systems, and after trying various arms, we only found it to sing with linear trackers (Vyger and Bergmann) consistently. Schroder CB, SME V, SME 3012r, Vertere, did not work well with it making it sound thin and lacking midbass. There are good reports from other users on Thales Statement. The only pivot I have heard a positive report on is Graham, but Thales and Graham I have not heard myself. Fremer's review on the SAT summarizes the attributes pretty well, and the review mentions it will not work with certain phonos. Moreover, it works for acoustic music mainly (which is fine for me) but DaVa works for all. 

Finally, the cost to experiment - to buy DaVa and to sell it off if it does not work for you, is the best equation across cartridges.   

Hi Raul,

You said my target is very clear from report on Mike’s system. I don’t think so. As then you go on to say “I like the natural color, power, transients speed, dynamic, rythm and the like of live MUSIC seated at nearfield position where between you and the MUSIC sources exist only the AIR.”

Before the pandemic lockdown I used to do around 50 concerts a year in London. Many London halls were frequented – Barbican and Southbank for orchestra, the same and Wigmore hall for smaller scale, sometimes King’s Place, and my favorite, Sheldonian at Oxford which is a 1600 century hall. I have also been to other halls in Europe. I have also watched rock bands indoors and outdoors.

My target is to play various recordings from RCA, EMI, Telefunken originals, some reissues from classic records, speakers corner, ERC, and enjoy realism as well as transparency to recordings, i.e. different LPs should give different feel of the concert, there should not be a system imposed feel of all concerts sounding the same.

My main system target is SETs horns, and some very simple small systems as well which are good value for money. I feel that with expensive stuff, price has to be earned, not demanded like many pieces of gear do these days.

Mike’s system is an exception to the kind of systems I like. He is the hardest working audiophile I know. I often tell people if you simply take Mike’s recommendations and add it in your system, it might not work for you like it does for him. If someone wants to replicate Mike’s system, they will need to buy his room and hire him as audio butler.

That said, you are ignoring the fact that Leif, who started the DaVa thread on WBF, has a 7 watts sets driven full range horn system with very high resolution TAD 4003 drivers (one up from what is used in the half a million Cessaro), and has DIY unshielded silver cables (only phono cable shielded). He has no phono, just a SUT, directly into a TVC passive preamp. As simple as it gets.

Another, has an EMT 927 with internal phono, class D amp, and low priced Alfred Bokrand arm. Nothing fancy. There are a 100 Davas in the market already over the last 2 years, and queue has grown from 4 months when Mike bought, to 6 to 8 when I ordered, to 1 year now. The more the people hear, the more they are buying.

Regarding Lyra, they are neutral but Lyra was never musical for me till the Lambda, it usually sacrificed decay to create illusion of speed. Yes the Olympos was musical but colored. Lambda seems to be the right balance.

A couple more points to my previous post:

I have heard the AN IO field coild cart, also mentioned in my blog on an Italian trip write up. It was also briefly compared in another system with Etsuro Bordeaux and Decca London. The owner of the system, quite rightly, decided to retain his Decca London. WBF has the mention of an AN IO field coil owner who heard the DaVa and put his AN up for sale.

Keep in mind this is selling without push from dealers. This is a dealer nightmare, to have a cartridge that sells directly AND can be chosen over their retail product. Carts as a commodity, many are bought without listening, based on price and hype. They often sell at discounts to retail, carts like Lyra and Zyx are costly to retip (vdh, Red Sparrow are not), and eventually you have to either exhaust their life or sell used with some loss. The DaVa apart from a great sound is something I welcome as being sold without retail margin, show margins, reviewer sample cost. That itself makes purchase for trial a no-brainer. I can totally understand if someone is apprehensive of trying a 16k retail cart even if it has great reviews. 

Some techy detail in this article

Sorry there is no point further debating with you, you will make what assumptions required in your post and state that as truism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

Just happened to visit the Gon for a short discussion, and ran into Raul

Darius just posted this on Facebook

“ATTENTION!!! All the orders for DAVA cartridges will be taken again after 1 May 2023.”
 

not sure if this is because he is choc a block filled with orders or because he thinks debating Raul and milo will take another 8 months * 24 hours.

There is no similarity between DS audio and DaVa except that both are the most detailed I have heard. Jonathan Tinn owns north and he or Mike could let us know what he thinks about both

 DS audio is not a field coil conical cactus stylus cartridge that can be put through an external phono, not does it have a tube power supply though is expected to get a tube encoder, I think. The sound and the resulting emotions are quite different between the two

I have heard, compared, and liked various audio technica from AT33, Art 9, to Art 1000. They are nice cartridges, very average compared to DaVa.

@rauliruegas  seems to assume and state other people’s preference without knowing their experiences to suit his theories.

on the discussion of air bearing linear trackers, my article on Vyger is here 

@lewm  sorry for the delayed response.

i am not a regular here, mainly because of the user interface. Regarding your points addressed to me: I have heard Maggie many times, the glass door pic was only in relation to a vyger system as in that article I covered vyger. I think Maggies are high value. I was a panel lover first, liking electrostats and analysis audio and apogee, and you were on my “hit list” as I wanted to listen to soundlabs with an OTL. Unfortunately too many targets and I haven’t made it across so far. 
 

horns was my other love, and I moved completely from panels to horns when I realised dual front loaded horns could do the midbass of well set up apogee grands, with all their might and with low watt SET magic.
 

on how do I evaluate sound? There were reference components and recordings I had on the site which I need to update, with the background that before pandemic I was doing almost 50 classical concerts a year across 6 halls in London before cloacal was primarily a rock guy so essentially what I like is to suit classical reproduction.

 There was a time when I used to like the gear creating soundstage, bass, etc, but since 2018 I have been focused on transparency to recordings, which means the gear should reflect the stage on the recording and the venue ambience should change with the recording. However for this quality original LPs are required which are not easy to access given the rarity and expense. 
 

flow is self explanatory to those who have heard it. It is a continuity of music, from note to note which you will hear with good analog compared to bad digital, or good valves compared to bad SS (please allow me these strawman generalisations to keep explanation simple). The opposite of flow is a stop start you hear after every note.

i like coherence, from top to bottom with linearity through the midbass, and also coherence off stage. Tone, timbre, dynamic range (the low to high distance traveled off a note). I like inflections and contrast…contrast of dynamics, of tone, inflections for example many notes in a violin as compared to just glossing over. Attack of the piano with the body of the note. Breathing of the bass section of the orchestra. Energy. All this should play without strain. 
 

i have liked highs in vintage speakers as well as in TAD ET703 and 4003, I have liked the nuance of beryllium horn drivers and disliked beryllium cone drivers, like paper horn drivers, ribbon drivers, electrostatic drivers, Altec woofers, Vyger TT which is a linear tracker with red sparrow cartridge, Dava, Lampi dac, many SETs, like to tube roll to optimise, blah blah. End game is Oistrakh, Heifetz, Kogan, Annie Fischer, Szell, Fricsay, Reiner, Jochum, Klemperer, Rostropovich, Hoelscher, and many others on decca, RCA, EMI, and some not so popular labels and get realism from them. 
 

i  am writing on the mobile so might have missed a few things

Personally I think it’s evident when heard. A friend of mine, when he put his optimised tape on next to his currently basic TT set up (waiting upgrade) he texted me he now gets what I mean by flow. Once he optimises his TT set up he should get it there as well. 
 

it’s very evident during compares, especially good tube gear Vs SS. 

I received my DaVa and directly sent it to my friend in NL for a compare, as he has my favourite analog set up, the vyger with red sparrow. It runs through Thrax mk2 and Thomas Mayer phonos into Trafomatic Elysium amps into Cessaro zetas. He also has Techdas AF3 premium with 4 arms and Dohmann mk2 with Graham elite and Grado epoch 3.

i well visit him shortly to listen for myself after which it will travel to one of my favourite set ups, the Altec 817 with Misho Myronov’s audio antiquary electronics. I love it currently with a Garrard and SPU, so it will be interesting to see what happens with the Dava. 
 

Anyway, my Dutch friend’s reaction after setting up the Dava. Less than two hours, still getting it right: “This is the best cartridge I have ever heard!
Excellent tone, crazy detail and unbelievable dynamic !!”

he has had many and still does for direct compare vdh master signature, Grand Cru, Opus, Vyger red sparrow, Grado Epoch 3, etc

further comments from him: 

“It has all the good things of all great carts in to one cart.
And without the negative things (so far).
I mean it has even more detail as the best VdH but without the edginess. It has the dynamics of the best carts but more. It’s crazy..
It has the tone of the red sparrow but even more bloom and speed.”

the next day he decided to buy it.