ZYX Airy 3x/SB vs. Dynavector XV-1 or 1s

Doug, Speedy and others have covered the salient points.

Let me add, that you will not side step your problem by switching to the XV-1s.

I love the Dynavectors, with the XV-1s (along with my trusty Denon 103R) being the only other cartridge I'd consider other than a ZYX at this point (I'm not saying there aren't others ... just that I haven't heard them).

If anything, the Dyna will be harder to tame on your 2.2. I lived with this combo for about 7 weeks last year.

Keep with the ZYX and work through your loading and damping issues.

One other point that has reared its ugly face in bold relief over the last 6 months ... how many highly regarded phono stages are fatally flawed. Names witheld to protect the guilty, many of these products receive continual great reviews and have wide acceptance and high price tags.

You'd be amazed to discover that what you had previously considered to be either a flawed setup, tracing distortion, or a bad cartridge is in fact a phono stage with excessive slewing distortion. I kid you not ... Get together with your local audio buddies and swap phono stages.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

All ...

My comment about not knowing anything more than before the thread started (about Universe, Collibri, XV-1s) was directed at the thread named:

"ZYX Universe, Dynavector XV-1s, vdH Colibri, ?? "

and not this thread.

Sorry for the confusion.

My comments about respecting Raul, stand ...

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Hello Wc65mustang,

I think you need to re-read your comments and realize the impact of the written word as far as human feelings and general civility are concerned. It's a simple matter to insult someone and then call him overly sensitive when either he responds or someone else does so in their defense.

I disagree with Raul on numerous items - specifically the use of step-up transformers.

Having said that, I respect and value his views as well as respecting him as an individual.

Raul brings a lot to the table and his preferences are very clear. Additionally, Raul puts in the hard work before he asserts his opinion. We need more "arrogant" people like Raul on this list and not fewer.

Most of what you read on Internet forums is worth the paper it's written on.

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I've been wrestling about how to reply the technical side of it for the few days I've followed it.

Let's just say that there's not much useful information imparted in this thread other than us getting an insight into the personalites of the posters (this does have value).

I entered this thread with no experience of the Colibri, a moderate experience of the Universe, and extensive experience of the XV-1s.

To this point, my understanding has not changed.

I realize that some people have made honest attempts at describing the sound they hear. They are nevertheless irrelevant to me because discipline was not followed during the evaluation.

Consider this parallel:

"He's a great person for the job, but I didn't do a background check on him. He's articulate, organized, and a good dresser so I think I'll hire him to a position where he handles all of the company's investments".

Get my point?

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier