Teres vs VPI, SME, Origin Live, etc.

Hi Raul,
You've posted in the past that the Graham 1.5 and its upgrades are just over-priced, mis-engineered knockoffs of the Audiocraft arm. I agree.

So I assume you're just trying to encourage a fuller discussion. Okay.

Tonearm wire/cable
The Schroeders (and TriPlanar) have single runs of wire. The Graham has multiple breaks and connections, and some of those connections are quite poor. Breaks in any signal path are electrical roadblocks of course. When the signal level is this low such roadblocks become audible. Neither a cartridge change nor any other change short of a hard rewire could alter this fundamental weakness of the Graham design.

Cartridge matching
The ZYX's are an excellent mass/compliance match for a Graham. 9-11 Hz in both modes.

Other cartridges
No one's heard everything, but we have also listened to Koetsu's and Shelters. Same result every time, with every group: the Schroeder wins unanimously.

Sometimes better is better.

I second Lugnut. I haven't heard an Illustrious but I owned a highly modded OL Silver. It couldn't hold a candle to a Schroeder, any Schroeder. I'd be embarassed to drag an OL arm into the same room with a Schroeder.

At the meet Lugnut attended the $2,400 Schroeder Two matched or beat a $3,900 Graham 2.2/IC-70. That was with a ZYX UNIverse on each arm, same table, same everything, we even tried two different preamps and some stepups.

There are no commercial reviews of a Teres because Teres doesn't sell via dealers, advertise in mags or provide free goodies to reviewers. We've discussed this a few times in the past. What they do is make well engineered tables and sell them directly to users for lower prices. There have been a few side by side comparisons described here and on VA. Not many, but a search should turn them up.

I also second Mrmb's endorsement of small, cottage industry manufacturers. You have to do your homework, the mainstream reviewers won't do it for you, but the value and performance often go far beyond what larger companies provide at given price points. If you can set up your own table, arm and cartridge then why not pay yourself the dealer's share? That's what you're doing in effect when you buy direct from Teres, Galibier, Scheu, etc.

Here's one plausible setup near your budget:
Teres 265 (Rosewood) $3,875
Teres VTA adaptor 200
Schroeder DPS 3,900
TOTAL $7,975 before discount

Teres may offer a package discount to put it near your budget. That would be a fine front end. You didn't say what cartridge(s) you'll be using, what kind of music you like or what kind of sound you're after. Knowing all that would help extend the discussion.

Lugut nailed it again in his latest post. I heard exactly what he described. Change the case on an outboard motor. Hear a difference. Who knew? That was astonishing.

The Schroeder Model Two is indeed an absolute bargain at its price point. Glorious sound, no significant flaws. Just less resolution than a DPS or Reference, stuff you may never miss unless you hear it.

I don't know if the UNIverse beat the Olympus, but it certainly matched it. The ZYX has two advantages over the Lyra: it's $5,000 cheaper and they're still making it! I've been calling the UNIverse a "bargain". Seems obscene but this was one more bit of evidence that it truly is.

As Lugnut mentioned, cartridge/arm synergy is vital. With UNIverses on the TriPlanar VII and Schroeder Reference we had to A/B the same track 5 or 6 times before anyone would say a word. They were that close. This didn't happen with any other comparisons we made, 30 seconds was often enough. Changing the turntable's motor case was more significant. Changing from a steel/cocobolo clamp to a brass/cocobolo clamp was more significant. This was nearly a dead heat.

To my ears and Paul's the TriPlanar/UNIverse had crisper attacks. The Reference/UNIverse had slightly richer and more extended harmonic trails. That was about it.

Put a Shelter 901 on these two arms and everything changes. The superior resonance control of the Schroeder comes into its own to tame that overly excitable cartridge. The superiority of the Schroeder over the TriPlanar with that cartridge is immediately obvious to all.

The TriPlanar VII is not a bright arm, but neither will it conceal a bright or overly-energetic cartridge. It's a superb match for the three ZYX's we've tried, but less well-damped cartridges may not suit it so well. The Schroeder Reference damps spurious resonances better, maybe better than any arm. That leads me to suspect it would give world class performance with any (reasonable) cartridge. That's one reason I believe it's the world's best pivoting arm.

...when I start in this forum I post that the Shelther 901 was on the high fidelity side and not as a high end top performer, Doug was angry with my statement but 3 to 4 months later he agree on that subject.

That's pretty funny. When exactly did I express this "anger". Please post a link to this ferocious post, I want to read it again. (If you have trouble finding it, try a search of your imagination.)

I always feel that I'm in a fight against you all.

That's your choice Raul, it's what you enjoy.

Example: You just criticized the 901. On another thread today I criticized the 901 and you jumped in to defend it! Here's a link if anybody cares to see another example of your attention-whoring hypocrisy:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1080416376&openflup&33&4#33

You obviously care nothing about audio or helping others, or you wouldn't call the 901 a mediocre cartridge here while encouraging someone to buy it over there. How truly sad.

SirSpeedy,
What does the military have to do with it? Military connectors are still connectors, and I doubt audio performance is on the military's list of requirements.

No connection, not even a soldered one, can match the electrical purity of a high quality wire. That's a physical impossibility for the military or anyone else.

SirSpeedy,
Thanks for the idea of soldering all my connections. It would probably sound better, as Raul confirmed. This of course supports the concept that a single tonearm wire has a sonic advantage over a broken one. It seems we agree on that.

Of course it's up to each of us to decide where and how far to take this principle. Raul makes soldering seem like quite a hassle however, and I'm sure it is. I'll hold off for now, but thanks for the suggestion.

Sorry your friend didn't like the SST. I haven't tried it. I have read literature from a similar product and the theory behind it is a mixture of good and silly. Considering the obvious risks and the undeniable hassle of trying to remove it I'm 100% with you - holding off.

***
The sort of analysis Twl just performed for the Acoustic Signature Final Tool is similar to one I did - mentally - when a dealer asked me if I'd like to compare another table with my Teres. This other table lists for over $11K. But when I compared them "on paper" it appeared to have trouble even matching the qualities of my $4K model 265.

The performance is the thing of course. I passed on the audition but I spent a lot of hours with that other table when the dealer asked me and some friends to help set one up and break it in for a customer. Comparing tables in different systems is dangerous of course, but my friends and I all came away unanimously convinced that this $11K table is simply uncompetitive.

IOW, my theoretical comparison was proved correct by a hands-on evaluation: nothing about that table was superior, many things about it were demonstrably inferior.

Yes, I'm a "fan" of Teres. I'm a fan of any product that offers engineering, materials, construction and performance that exceed what's generally available for the price. The Teres models at least up to the 265 provide remarkable performance at their respective price points. Their component quality equals or betters tables selling for 2-3X the price. No one needs to apologize for appreciating genuine value. I will always be a fan of that.

Doug

There was discussion here last year to hold a Teres/Galibier/Redpoint "shootout" at RMAF. That didn't pan out AFAIK, so I'm not sure a direct comparison (same room, same sytem, etc.) has ever been made.