Love these first hand Soundsmith reviews. But every time I get my mind made up it must be the SG then I read about the magical Hyperion midrange and, arrgh! Good thing I'm not quite ready yet.
Showing 5 responses by millercarbon
@slaw I was thinking of the Sussurro but from some other posters do you think jumping all in for a SG cartridge would be wiser? Never listened to a SG before. That is what I plan on doing when the time comes. All the reviews and comments point to the SG1 being right up there with the very best regardless of price. Cartridges which of course cannot be compared without being used with an equally expensive top flight phono stage. Factor in the SG1 eliminates the (very expensive) phono stage, and a very affordable user-replaceable stylus (if included with your order) and you have a stone bargain in a truly high end cartridge. Search around, the clincher for me was there are aftermarket power supplies that are said to elevate the SG1 into the highest levels of the very very best rigs. Depending on the phono stage you have now and what you can get for it the net cost of moving into a SG can be very reasonable. |
People should be careful reading posts like ducati1098rr above. The more authoritative someone tries to sound the worse it is when it turns out their lack of actual experience has led them to a lot of flat out false conclusions. I actually built a turntable https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 and in the process tried out and experienced first hand every tiny little bit of what goes into one. Just to take one small part, the bearing, I have modified it several times and so know exactly what affects what. Plinth, made several, tried em out, heard the differences. Motor, controller, suspension. Belts and drive mechanisms. Half a dozen iterations of each. Arm. Phono leads. I could go on and on. And on. It categorically is NOT the case that anyone can rank these things in order all neat and tidy. Certainly not the arm. Absolutely not the cartridge. Would be nice to know what hands-on experience those claims are based on. If any. |
Waaaa. 😭😭😭 But if on the other hand you call up and the guy talks to you for three minutes there will be whiners opining the guy has too much time. Or you are unnecessarily needy. Or something. There is ALWAYS something some audiophile somewhere will find to complain about. My peeve is noobs with zero cred who come on bashing a man doing business without giving us even the slightest reason to take the criticism seriously. Like some gang banger driving through the hood just letting the shots fly no concern for the reality they are in fact bullets, no care who might get hit. Drive on. Find another neighborhood. Please. |
How good are Soundsmith cartridges? Good enough to be next in line, and end of the line, for me. When ready to replace/upgrade my Koetsu Black Goldline it will be to a SG1. Which also makes it the upgrade for the Herron. Why? Because, if you do the research you will find what tablejockey said, SG1 is up there with all the very best and VERY costly SOTA carts, but at a fraction of the price. Considering you are getting both a surpassingly fine cart and phono stage in one, for less than the cart alone, or the phono stage alone, would cost with the others, a very small fraction indeed. But if not a SG1 then one of his more normal MI carts. But seriously, it will be the SG1. So yeah, Soundsmith is pretty good. |