Hear my Cartridges....🎶

On my phone. Simon and Garfunkle sound more live with the Victor. The MC sounds more colorful initially ...until it just sounds colored and somewhat recessed. The MM is like opening the windows and hearing the live sound.

I hear something similar to you Noromance......
This could be interesting....🧐

Although on listening to both again......I don’t really know 🤔
The sound on my iPad is not quite what I hear ‘live’....?
Will be interesting to see what Frogman thinks......

Catching up to you guys. Listened on my Stax/tube set.

Palladian/MIT:

Once again, I wish I could say that the less expensive cartridge (MIT) sounds as good as the Palladian, but I just don’t hear it that way. They both sound very good, but the Palladian refuses to add extra body to the midrange/lower mids. The first minute or so of the recording tells the whole story:

From the very first notes of the piece one hears a little less false roundness to the left hand (lows) of the piano with the Palladian; a good thing. The MIT sounds slightly (!) tubby by comparison while the Palladian lets one hear more of the natural resonance and decay of low notes. Partly as a result of this the mids sound a little less incisive with the MIT; sounding, again, a little too round without as much natural leading edge. As always, the extra thickness obscures musical performance detail. The most obvious difference can be heard beginning at around :50 in the “forte” chord passages and with the sharply struck individual high notes. On demanding passages the MIT’s character seems to change dramatically (relatively) and almost sounds like a not particularly good upright piano instead of a good grand. It starts to sound clangy and almost metallic. Not good. The Palladian remains much more “composed” without strain or hint of mistracking which may be the reason for the clangy quality that the MIT exhibits on loud passages.

Palladian/Victor:

I agree with noromance that the Palladian sounds recessed by comparison. However, I’m not sure that I would agree that it sounds “colored” compared to the Palladian. “Colored” means different things to different listeners and to me the Palladian sounds closer to what I might hear during a live performance. I think that the “recessed” quality of the Palladian is simply the way it was recorded and the extra midrange juice of the Victor may be pushing things forward a bit for a seemingly less recessed quality. Much of what was heard in the Palladian/MIT comparison applies, but even more so. The Victor (most of the Victors, so far) have a very juicy midrange/lower mids that, while very attractive, is not necessarily the most natural and is, in fact, what I would call “colored”.

Even before the tune begins we can hear a difference in the tonal character of each cartridge. The audience sounds sound slightly muffled with the Victor. Then, listen to the introductory guitar accompaniment. Notice how much “bigger” the single low note that starts each measure of the ostinato guitar line is; almost as if it is being played by a different and larger instrument. That low note should have the same tonal character as the upper notes and sound more like a natural and integrated part of the musical line as heard with the Palladian. Then, when the bass enters things get a little too thick and borderline boomy for me and all that extra juice obscures some of the beautifully simple vocal harmonies.

As always, taking into account the limitations of listening this way and possible system synergy issues, I think that the Palladian is a kicka$$ cartridge. It is amazing that far less expensive cartridges can compete in any way, but still....no free rides, as they say.  I also think that being used to the terrible leanness and lack of natural tonal body of much “audiophile”-pedigree sound it is easy to be seduced by components that possibly swing too far in the opposite direction. As with most things, the truth is usually in the middle.

Thanks, all.