Pani ... New ART-9 up and running ...

Just stumbled upon this thread, very timely too as I have recently at last, fitted my ART-9 to my SAEC WE506/30. I have been working on (and off - as time permits) a rebuild of a 1978 Sony TTS 8000 with the SAEC in my own plinth design. The plinth is currently at prototype stage to establish correct tonearm positioning as SAEC's own recommendations I assume are based around 7" singles, the 506 being manufactured for the broadcasting industry. I have sub 20hrs with ART-9 so far, but in line with many of you gents, I agree wholeheartedly that this is a significant cartridge at the price point, and also in comparison to far more costly ones. So far, I just feed it into my Clearaudio Basic phono stage, (which is staggeringly good value!) but in the next week a new Concert Fidelity SPA4c V2 will be installed which is a very concise amplifier. We used this at T.H.E show to much praise. (Disclaimer; I distribute Concert Fidelity products in the UK, but I am not here to 'promote' their products). 

I did have some concerns over matching the ART-9 with the 12" SAEC, as the '9' is fairly compliant, but it seems that there are no issues at all to worry about and it tracks extremely well even at inner groove. It has a very concise and clean sound once the set up is perfect, and I did spend many many hrs working on the CAD model to ensure geometry was correct, and it pays me back each time I have played an LP so far. Once the plinth design and materials are finalised and machined / built, the ART-9 will be well past 100hrs use and the CF stage will also be in use, so there is more to come from this little beauty. 

VTF seems good around 1.7 - 1.75 gms for me, how does this compare for other users here? Also, the CF stage offers 100 or 200 ohm settings ( +30 & 50 ohm), I start out with 100 AT recommend to begin with though..

ATB,
Paul.

Glad you’re happy Al, it will gradually get better as others have said, I have just passed the 100hrs mark and the sound has formed very well, it is very coherent and nothing distracts from the musical performance itself, as you say, very nicely detailed without over emphasising the HF. Bass improves in definition and scale, I think it is excellent in this area.

Take time for a very good set up and it is a true bargain by today’s standards. (Melm it is £820 in the UK)

Rgds,
Paul.

^^ Agreed, it is indeed amazing for the outlay. Mine is just past 100hrs now, and presenting music as good as I have heard in 30 yrs in this crazy hobby. I just heard some new guitar lines in Love over Gold that I had never knew existed, adding to the great sense of space and instrument placement makes this MC a serious contender way above it’s price point. It clearly works well with the updated V2 of Concert Fidelity’s SPA4c phono stage, an ultra short signal path design. Masa Tsuda is a fan of My Sonic Labs cartridges which are also sublime, but for now I’m more than happy with the ART-9..

Having lived with the 9 for over a year now, I'm really wondering at what cost will a worthwhile improvement come at? I've used several Dynavectors, and do like them, XX-2 mk11 and 17d2 which I still have bought new in 1991, and it still sounds fine. Art9 is in a totally different TT though, a rebuild of a Sony TTS 8000 with SAEC 506/30. This combination with very careful set up is addictive. I recently re-wired the 506 with silk covered silver which brought more out of the art9 than before, depth, definition space and bass /hf extremes are extended but very natural, nothing is fighting for attention more than other area's, just more like the music flows better. So, how much more does the ART1000 give over the ART9? Or, a Dynavector XV-1t??

After careful examination with a usb microscope it turned out that the stylus on my art9 was set at a quite an angle pointing forward, meaning i had to raise the arm to its max plus make some other adjustments to get a 90 degree stylus angle.. The 92 degrees that gets recomended by some was not acheivable however. AT UK are yet to even respond to any emails querying this which is pretty poor, so I would recomend close inspection to any new art 9. There is a considerable difference in sonics at varying angles of the stylus for sure..