Step Up Transformer

From personal (okay lewm?) experience I’ve learned that some combinations stand out, sometimes when you least expect it to. The sound has an intrinsic rightness, as if there’s some kind of electric handshake. In my system(s) the Ortofon cartridges I own behave like this every time I connect them to an SUT.

@edgewear 

Several cartridges, phono stages, tonearms here too (LOTS of headshells and arm wands on hand) -- and what you've written really gels and resonates with my experience! Without a SUT I perceive Ortofons as dry, lean, and lacking passion. With a SUT - they're still not a Koetsu but sometimes really surprise me and "hit the spot". The Windfeld Ti is probably my most "hot and cold" cartridge, but for last session at least, it was very hot!

The Blue Lace on FR64S is my unimpeachable Reference. It's always, consistently great -- so it's not knocked about by the ebb & flow of my transient preferences and moods. The various Benzes, Shelters, Ortofons, and other Koetsus are constantly undulating up & down in rankings (relative to each other) with my affections. There's always ONE of these that makes me think "I like this as much as the Blue Lace!", but it never lasts for long lol.

Did not mean to offend anyone. Just trying to make a point about the subjective nature of these decisions. It seems the OP has chosen a SUT. One hopes he will be happy with it, and even more than that, it will be interesting to learn how he  likes it compared to his high gain phono stage for sound quality with his cartridge. 

Dear @lewm : I think that more and more Agon forum audiophiles ( 90% ) as in other internet audio forums people are fully oriented to what they like and nothing wrong with that .

The experimented audiophiles as edgewear or mulveling and many others targets are what I said here about and we can read and confirm that issue through the posts in this thread and in almost any other threads, even the OP just does not cares of what is recorded in those LP groove modulations and obviously not only him.

I think too that an issue is that today part of our hobby more than enjoy true MUSIC as is recorded or " near " live event: " we are looking for colorations, added colorations, in what we listen day by day.

The SUT is a pristine example as many other added links in our home system chain, I already posted: a SUT can’t improve any recorded LP vs an active high gain phono unit. Everything that we add to the cartridge signal during LP reproduction can’t improve in no single way the quality levels of what we listen with out those " adds ". So we like those added " colorations/distortions " and can be addictive. In the past I was " there " in that same " road " that is part of the fun even if is wrong road.

In my system I try to put at MINIMUM the steps where the analog/digital audio signal must pass through but these is me and what I learned about is that when we put at minimum those signal steps what we experienced through our room/system is reallu outstanding and just near the " best " we can be to MUSIC recordings or live event.

The MUSIC audio road is a learning ladder that we have to go up step by step and no I know I don’t finished yet.

Lewm and dear friends: don't you think that all those recording process steps till we receive the LP are not added enough distortion/coloration  to add other than the minimum necessary steps during the play process?

R.

@mulveling very apt description of the Ortofon’s sonics through active gain devices. The dry and lean character simply vanishes with a good SUT. Tonearm matching can also make or break them. For example, I had great trouble getting the Anna from mistracking on the tonearms I tried (FR64S, Micro MAX-237, Audiocraft AC-4400 and Exclusive EA-10). So I almost gave up on it until I tried it with a FR64FX on a second turntable. Now it tracks everything with apparent ease and sounds terrific. A complete change of behaviour that I just can’t explain.

Funny you should mention Koetsu as your benchmark. I’ve been having much trouble coming to terms with an Onyx (pre platinum) and I was prepared to give up on it as well. Until I changed around some connections which hooked up my FR64S (silver wire inside) through an Ikeda copper wire tonearm cable to a silver wired Ortofon T-3000. And waddayouknow? The Onyx in a FR RS-141 headshell with Ortofon silver leadwires gave musical bliss! No comparison with any other combination I had tried thus far. I no longer expected this to happen, but I’m glad it did. The Koetsu is now a keeper.

Dear @edgewear  : It's no surprice the mistracking you experienced with the 64S and low compliance Anna where its resonance frequency is not aquated and out of the " ideal " frequency range when in the 64FX it's spot on at the middle. The 4400 is almost a unipivoted design with some trouble with its bearing damping oil ranges and with its lateral balance too and not good couple for the Anna and I don't know which pipe arm you used with the 237. Btw, I don't know if you still use the RX-1550.

" The dry and lean character simply vanishes with a good SUT. "

,Well knowing Boulder that's more or less how was recorded those or " that " LP, the Ortofon character and the SUT gave you not better quality level cartridge signal performance but only added the colorations you like it even if those colorations are only added distortions.

R.