Hello all, I'm now back from Greece and struggling to re-adjust to both the former lifestyle - over the previous hiking lovely mountain paths in the mountains overlooking the Aegean, swimming in said sea, and drinking with the locals late into each night - and the temperature difference: sweating as I hiked compared with chilly sub-zero temperatures and constant snowfalls! But, I've already been active demonstrating my monstrous Ultra Lenco, for which demo I rewired a Rega RB-300 with ultra-fine solid core and Petra. As always when I take the time to properly set up an RB-300, I am stunned at how good it is.
The secret to the RB-300 is high-quality MCs (and rewiring). When used with MMs (especially Grados) or lower-end MCs, the Rega RB-250 sounds better, but as the MCs (especially, though some MMs, like the late lamented Shure V15 VxMR, sound incredible on a rewired RB-300) mount in quality, so too does the RB-300. I had first tried a Dyna 20X HO (latest version with the microridge stylus and tapped body), which sounded decent, but when out of curiosity I mounted the NOS Karat Ruby I had I was stunned at how much better it was. If one cruises the various forums looking at reports of the 17D vs the 20X, one reads it is a small but definite improvement, but what I heard on the Lenco/rewired RB-300 was an annihilation, and whole new order of excellence. It was MUCH faster, MUCH more transparent, MUCH more dynamic, fast, organized....the Karat Ruby (23RS) is incredible, (and one assumes the 17D MKIII is better still), and in many ways seems to outclass much more expensive MCs, though more listening is needed to confirm this, as bass is light and tight on the Karat, while bass on pricey MCs is much deeper and richer. But no contest in terms of speed and resulting organization, as the utter lack of smear means instruments are much easier to differentiate in dense passages.
This is evidently due also to the much greater speed and dynamics of idlers over belt-drives, which consequently goes much further to highlight the sonic differences between ultra-fast cartridges like the Karats (with their ultra-short gemstone cantilevers) and higher-end MCs, or indeed any other MCs or MMs (excepting perhaps the Deccas). Belt-drives, with their slower transients and much smaller dynamic palette minimize these differences, and maximize differences in bass reach and power (the Karats being drier and more damped). But, more auditioning is needed to find out exactly is going on. But, the Rega RB-300/Dyna Karat Ruby is in the same league, in terms of information-retrieval, as the much pricier JMW/Clearaudio Concerto I matched earlier against the SME 30/Graham Phantom/Benz Ebony, and which matched it in terms of detail, imaging and overall information-retrieval (other judgment aside). On top of this, the RB-300/Karat has excellent PRaT and gestalt, is not bright or fierce and so is natural-sounding with all recordings, making it a musical joy. So, extend this to include an RB-300/17D as a killer reasonably-priced match.
I'll be playing with other big idlers now winter's here, such as the Rek-o-Kut and Gates (built in some ways like an EMT), as well as various stone plinths and more on the Sony 2250.
One of the great impressions made by the Giant Direct Coupled Lenco in a Shindo eledtronics/Devore system is silence: a near-total absence of noise, including normal surface noise, making for ultra-black backgrounds.
Have fun all!
