"Finally, I am aware that the performance of the products in question may differ substantially with other cartridges and systems so my ranking is a subjective opinion within the parameters of my system, room and musical tastes."
I'm glad to see you point this out and I'd like to expand on this. I'm thrilled to see the A23 and Shindo tranfos do well and I'm glad you like them. Both are being used with a non optimum source impedance. Nothing is universal about a SUT and each will sound its best with a different source impedance. The Koetsu is 2.5 x the optimum impedance of both the A23 and Shindo SUT putting them at a big disadvantage, IMHO. The shoot out results are more about the cartridges likes than the actual transformers abilities.
I'm glad to see you point this out and I'd like to expand on this. I'm thrilled to see the A23 and Shindo tranfos do well and I'm glad you like them. Both are being used with a non optimum source impedance. Nothing is universal about a SUT and each will sound its best with a different source impedance. The Koetsu is 2.5 x the optimum impedance of both the A23 and Shindo SUT putting them at a big disadvantage, IMHO. The shoot out results are more about the cartridges likes than the actual transformers abilities.