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What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

I believe that a cartridge and a speaker, by far, contribute the most to SQ.

The two transducers in a system.

I bit the bulllet and bought a Lyra Atlas SL for $13K for my Woodsong Garrard 301 with Triplanar SE arm. I use a full function Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp. My $60K front end. It is certainly, by far, the best I have owned. I read so many comments exclaiming that Lyra as among the best. I had to wait 6 months to get it. But the improvement over my excellent $3K Mayijima Shilabi was spectacular-putting it mildly.

I recently heard a demo of much more pricy system using a $25K cartridge. Seemed to be the most expensive cartridge made. Don’t recall the name.

For sure, the amount of detail was something I never heard. To hear a timpani sound like the real thing was incredible. And so much more! 
This got me thinking of what could be possible with a different kind of cartridge than a moving coil. That is, a moving iron.

I have heard so much about the late Decca London Reference. A MI and a very different take from a MC. Could it be better? The World’s Best? No longer made.

However Grado has been making MI cartridges for decades. Even though they hold the patent for the MC. Recently, Grado came out with their assault on “The World’s Best”. At least their best effort. At $12K the Epoch 3. I bought one and have been using it now for about two weeks replacing my Lyra. There is no question that the Atlas SL is a fabulous cartridge. But the Epoch is even better. Overall, it’s SQ is the closest to real I have heard. To begin, putting the stylus down on the run in grove there is dead silence. As well as the groves between cuts. This silence is indicative of the purity of the music content. Everything I have read about it is true. IME, the comment of one reviewer, “The World’s Best”, may be true.
 

 

mglik

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reimarc
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I just sold my EMIA SUT. Not that I did not like it: it is a great piece, albeit it make my soundstage a bit more forward; and quite frankly, it was also a bit "bombastic", larger-than-life in a way (interacting with Dave Slagle, however was a wonderful experience). Before I had bought the EMIA I had the EMT Auditorium in my system for a test run: that one made the music even more bombastic, or rather, put me in the conductor's position, almost in the middle of the orchestra (Wagner, Das Rheingold). That was simply way too much. 

I sold the EMIA because I am about to receive a Supratek Grange any time now, after having placed my order last November. The Grange is a phono/pre-amp in one, and does not come with a  47K Ohm input, in other words, MC only w/o SUT, and no London Reference, unfortunately.

I am looking - like the gentleman who started this thread - for my future cartridge to be paired with the Grange. I currently use a Benz Micro LPS-Ebony with Gyger stylus on a ProJect 10-Carbon TT. It's a great cartridge for all styles of music, but somehow, it does not bring me to tears or gives me goosebumps. So, for a year now, I am looking for an alternative in the same price range (4 - 6K), that would create that elusive gasp, w/o having to discuss next year's finances with my wife. I was intrigued by the Tzar DST cartridges, because of the revival of the old Neumann stylus/coil geometry, i.e. shortest-possible distance between stylus und coils, but the price tag is too high. I placed a wanted ad for the AudioTechnica AT-ART 1000, which has a similar Neumann-based design for half the price, and someone contacted me today with an offer. So, my question to this illustrious forum: has anyone heard this cartridge (the late Art Dudley had, and he loved it), and if so, what are your comments/recommendations? Shall this become my goosebump machine?

 
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