Sumiko Blackbird, Shindo and EAR

The interesting thing is that I have a cheap Denon DP-500 turntable that I bought new just a few months ago, and the tonearm is the stock one. At some point I plan to upgrade on this front, but I am really happy with what I currently have...my ears hear a very natural music (this morning I was playing Sarah Vaughan's American singer, and it looked like having her in the room)

Directly into the MC input.

Good catch, Restock. The review says that "it CAN be used with MM..." My interpretation is that one does not have MC, he can use MM. But let me try it with MM and I will let you know how it does.

Restock, I tried it with the MM input, and I think you're right that it sounds even better...not worlds better, but I find it a tad more transparent. Thanks so much for the tip.

Very interesting, Restock...are you basically saying that you do not think the blackbird optimizes the capabilities of the shindo? thanks.

Thanks again. This is helpful.

Regarding more resolving carts, I would say that I am not too much in favor of extremely high-resolution systems...sometimes I feel like real life (e.g. live concerts) is lower definition than some of the systems we use to reproduce it. In the past, I was an amateur photographer. There was a Nikon lens that most people raved about...it was so high-def that it would allow you to spot micro-details about one's face that the naked eye would not be able to see, at the same distance. As I said, most people raved about it, but I thought it was way too high-def for me. I guess this kind of reasoning carries over to audio. So far, the blackbird produced the most real sound i've ever heard in my system...but I am sure there are many other carts that can do better than that.

That is precisely how I would describe the Blackbird...I just listened to the new Bob Dylan's LP, and found it totally amazing...very real