SME 20/2 SME V or Triplanar VII?

Hi Ed,

I haven't been on the forum in about a week, and someone pointed me to this thread. The owner you'll be visiting is running a couple of cartridges - a Van den Hul and one other (Denon DL-103R?) riding on a Micro Seiki MA-505 Mk III tonearm.

The Micro is serving him until his Schröder Reference arrives. I'd rank the Micro in the general area you'd slot the Moerch DP-6, but being perhaps a bit more rolled off in the upper frequencies - especially when compared with the newer Moerchs.

A note to Dan_ed ... I've been playing with the loading on the XV-1s - dropping it from the 110 ohms you heard it with, down to 35 ohms. It loses some of that "edgy" quality at this loading while still having all of the speed you'd ever want.

While Raul's advice about choosing the phono cartridge makes sense from the perspective of compatibility, I'd turn this problem around - to try to audition a tonearm for compatibility with a range of cartridges. I look at a cartridge as a "consumable" item - hopefully one that gets "consumed" very slowly (grin). You will ideally own your tonearm for the rest of your life, and for this reason, I'd bias the purchase toward the tonearm.

Now, as far as compatibility issues are concerned, you're always at the mercy of the demo, and I sympathize with your plight.

You should walk away from any demo experience knowing that if it sounds good, that you have some sort of synergy going on. Pinpointing the exact synergy can be a problem of course. Alternatively, if it sounds bad, it may lie in a suboptimal setup and not flawed compatibility. I realize this last bit of information doesn't help you much - other than to leave you open to additional information.

You will hopefully walk away from auditions having heard a few working combinations.

I can tell you that my most extensive experience with the Triplanar has been with:

(1) ZYX - Universe and Airy-3
(2) Benz LP
(3) Dynavector XV-1s
(4) Denon DL-103R

All five of these cartridges have had an inherent charm and I was left with the impression that I was hearing the cartridge's characteristics shine through - that the arm did not color what they were doing.

As far as Cello's preference for both the Lyra and the Universe over the XV-1s, I am a bit puzzled.

I'm very familiar with all three cartridges and well aware that my buddy Frank Schröder ranks the Lyra and the Universe above the XV-1s. This Fall, I plan on showing Frank what my several month long experiment with the XV-1s has turned up.

In a strange way, I consider both the XV-1s and the Universe to be far closer to each other than the Lyra in one very critical respect - their ability to convey the emotional content of the music. This is not insignificant

Now, the Lyra and the XV-1s are kissin' cousins in one respect - their blazing speed. I can envision a continuum - with the Universe at one extreme, the XV-1s in the middle, and the Olympos at the other. Realize that in my saying this that all three are very fine cartridges and I can envision someone choosing any one of them in the right system.

Of course, I have no commercial interest in saying the following, but the Benz LP should not be ignored in comparison with the above 3 cartridges.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

We did an all-night tonearm / cartridge session on Saturday night.

Schröder / Triplanar / Universe / XV-1s / Benz LP

Jeez, I'm getting too old for this abuse.

Truthfully, the difference between 35 ohms and 78 (the resistors I had on hand) were very subtle. I should have made this more clear. The change from 105 to 78 however was definitely noticeable and significant.

I didn't want to get too deeply into loading on this thread, but I might note that as my system resolution increases (thanks to the Karna amplifiers and Azzolina horns), I'm seeing the Universe prefer less loading - being currently at 20 ohms.

I plan on further experimentation with the Universe based on this.

I'm planning on further experimentation. I was quite surprised by this recent trial, because I had been running in the area where Doug had been - a touch higher than his preferred 7.8 - at 9 ohms, but in that general range. I'm not sure what's going on here, other than perhaps a reduction of high frequency resonance elsewhere in the system.

This is one reason why you should look at loading from a system tuning perspective and not as an absolute ... much as we wish this were otherwise.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Hi Ed,

If I had the time, I'd be evaluating the Phantom right now. Unfortunately, this is proving to be a busy Summer, and free time such as it were is booked for other projects. I'm hopeful that I can pick this up in the Fall.

Some on this list may think that because my tastes do not lean towards the 2.2, that I might not be interested in the Phantom.

There are two very potent reasons for me wanting to spend time with the Phantom.

1. The 2.2 is a joy to set up and tracks marvelously. I expect nothing less of the Phantom.

2. My experiences with the shift from my Teflon composite platter architecture to the TPI may very well parallel what Bob has learned about his tonearm designs.

With respect to item 2 above, the single minor criticism I had with my Teflon composite platters (and I do mean minor), is that in the wrong system, they could sound the slightest bit bright. To my ears however, their other virtues could not be ignored. The TPI top layer addresses this issue.

The general reports I've read about the Phantom would lead me to believe that there is some parallel progress being made in this area and I'm very interested in hearing the results.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Hi Ed,

When you get into high-mass unsuspended turntables, the arm compatibility is reduced to a non-issue - at least from a mass perspective, because there is no resonant tuning to deal with a turntable's suspension.

This reduces the challenge such as it were to the non-trivial task of component matching - canceling colorations and such. The good news is that we're at the top tier of components and so the task becomes both easier and more difficult:

It's easier, because all of the tonearms under consideration control cartridge resonances quite well - to a greater or lesser extent. The interesting thing about this is that you'll discover different cartridges sounding paradoxically both more resolving and yet more alike. The reason for this is that as you mitigate a major source of coloration (resonance), resolution rises, and one major contributor to their sonic signatures is reduced.

Of course, it becomes more difficult as you hear more deeply into the rest of your system ... but that's why we play this crazy game.

The best news to come out of all of this is that as you tame resonances, you'll be listening to more of your record collection and not less.

This is the single most significant reason I see for going to extreme with your analog - to be able to listen to your dumpster RCA Dynagrooves. I regularly pull them out during a demo to show how a good analog rig expands your record collection.

A system that shunts you into playing only your best recordings is a system that is ultimately flawed.

Enjoy!

Thom @ Galibier

Hi Dgad,

Just be aware when you do the Universe/XV-1s comparison that your results could easily be reversed in different systems.

Are you aware of any of the system particulars that you can share at this time?

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Hi Dgad,

Frank Schröder suggests that the upper effective mass limit for a silver based ZYX (Airy / Universe) is 15 grams.

My experience points toward this being at the very top, with 11-12 grams giving you a bit more nimbleness.

The Dyna XV-1s does not seem to be as perturbed by a heavy mass tonearm such as my 18 gram ebony Schröder reference, but I prefer to run it with an arm in the 10-15 gram range.

Share your experiences with us when you do the evaluation.

CARTRIDGE LOADING

One rule of thumb I've found to work as a starting point is 5 times the DCR (DC resistance) of the cartridge's coils.

Somewhere between half of this number and double the number invariably seems to work.

All too frequently, you'll see loading recommendations that are as much a statement about the rest of the system as they are about the cartridge.

I. Universe: don't restrict yourself to the seemingly ubiquitous 7-9 ohms. I've recently been loading my Universe at about 18 ohms and plan on exploring even higher before reaching a conclusion.

If memory serves, the low o/p versions of the Airy and Universe cartridges have a DCR of 4 ohms.

So ...

5 times 4 ohms = 20 ohms.

II. XV-1s: somewhere between 35 ohms and 100 should work nicely. Start high and work down.

5 times 6 ohms = 30 ohms. You'll note Dynavector specifies "> 30 ohms" on their website.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Thanks for stepping in, Doug.

Also, note that the rule of parallel resistors applies, but in the case of two largely different resistor values (like 47K and 500 ohms), the net parallel resistance is for all intents and purposes that of the lower value resistor.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier