I heard it at Soundsmith following an audition of "The Voice". The Serioso (sp?) was WAY better. In fact, it made "The Voice" sound pretty bad by comparison. It should, it costs three times as much. Not sure how it would stack up against similarly priced moving coils, however. I also wonder whether this cartridge could be offered for half the cost at which point it might make sense to a lot more people. I also listened briefly to the Strain Gauge following the Seriso. This was a very close call to my ears. The whole audition was rather difficult since I was completely unfamiliar with the associated equipment, aside from the VPI turntable. For example, the speakers were rather small two ways so it was relatively impossible to establish bass performance. I never really felt like we were getting excellent sound with ANY of the cartridges but who can say whether it was the cartridges or something further down the chain. I doubt I'll any future cartridge demoing since it is rather difficult to say how any cartridge would translate into my system unless the rest of the gear is the same or close to it.
