I have two Soundsmith cartridges-- The Hyperion and Paua and neither exhibit the slightest sibilance (other than the occasional bad LP-- and that's hardly the cartridge's fault). I use one on a SOTA belt drive table and the other on a Pioneer direct drive unit. I would also recommend calling Peter and letting him try to help you. Soundsmith offers excellent support. At least that's been my experience.
Gonna have to ditch the Soundsmith Carmen II
I've given this cart the benefit of the doubt and then some, but it's going to have to go.
the sibilance on s's is just to much. The sound isn't distorted, just way louder than the rest of the vocals. This happens to one degree or the other on all records with vocals. Sometimes it's barely noticeable sometimes it hard to bare. other than the sibilance I love the sound, I love the live nature of the music. so I hate getting rid of it.
So so the things I've done and made sure are dead on:
alighnment - that means SRA, VTA, TF, Azimuth, anti skate (per,SS), platter level, checked mounting hardware, checked tunntable . . .etc
my Denon 2x20L doesn't do this.
it may be there is a bad combo with some piece of equipment or loudspeaker and it just doesn't jive with the rest of the rig.
My system:
VPI prime
Parasound JC3+ Phono pre
PAD phono cables
Decware integrated SET tube amp
Zu Omen Def MKII with Radian tweeter upgrade.
So the question is what cart, around $1k will give that live dynamic sound, tracks well, but does emphasize the S's?
ones I'im interested in but have no way of hearing:
Ortofon Quintet Black
Audio Technica ART 9
???
the sibilance on s's is just to much. The sound isn't distorted, just way louder than the rest of the vocals. This happens to one degree or the other on all records with vocals. Sometimes it's barely noticeable sometimes it hard to bare. other than the sibilance I love the sound, I love the live nature of the music. so I hate getting rid of it.
So so the things I've done and made sure are dead on:
alighnment - that means SRA, VTA, TF, Azimuth, anti skate (per,SS), platter level, checked mounting hardware, checked tunntable . . .etc
my Denon 2x20L doesn't do this.
it may be there is a bad combo with some piece of equipment or loudspeaker and it just doesn't jive with the rest of the rig.
My system:
VPI prime
Parasound JC3+ Phono pre
PAD phono cables
Decware integrated SET tube amp
Zu Omen Def MKII with Radian tweeter upgrade.
So the question is what cart, around $1k will give that live dynamic sound, tracks well, but does emphasize the S's?
ones I'im interested in but have no way of hearing:
Ortofon Quintet Black
Audio Technica ART 9
???