How Does the Soundsmith

I agree with Teres' comparison of the Voice with a Jade Platinum. Of course revealing that a cartridge is faster and more articulate than a Koetsu will win us neither friends nor golden ear awards. They’ll be crying "Death!" on one side and "Duh!" on the other!

OTOH, if a Voice sounds faster or more articulate than a UNIverse then IMO something was amiss. From what I heard in two rooms at RMAF, neither the Voice nor its bigger brother would even match the articulation of the Atmos, much less a UNIverse.

I definitely agree the Voice is "smooth and easy on the ears" though that's a listener preference and not a characteristic of any live music I listen to, especially if it’s complex. Understanding how it goes about sounding this way may help you make a decision.

The Voice goes smooth and easy because it collapses harmonic overtones toward or into the fundamental. Example: an 16kHz overtone is attenuated and some of its energy feeds the 8kHz overtone, which is also attenuated and some of its energy feeds the 4kHz fundamental, etc. (In the Voice this can leave a trace of mud on the fundamental; the Strain Gauge does the same thing but more cleanly.)

Components which do this - and there are many, not just cartridges - can make the sound simpler, smoother and easier for a system to reproduce and for the listener to hear.

Quite a few cartridges (including UNIverse, Colibri, Lyra Olympos, XV-1S and even the Atmos) deliver a more complete spectrum by reproducing rather than collapsing higher order harmonics. Of course that demands more from a system - which must reproduce all those harmonic complexities clearly. Distorted upper mids and highs sound anything but smooth and easy, as we all know.

The Voice can indeed produce a powerful, fast, smoothed and easy sound. It's not clear from your post if that's your goal. FWIW, no SS phono stage that I've heard reproduces harmonics completely either, so it's possible the Ayre might let you enjoy everything the Voice does without missing what it doesn’t.

Excellent comparison by Dgad. As best one can tell from our pathetic attempts to describe music and sound in words, we heard similar things.

The Voice is more like a big muscle car. Tons of power but a bit smoother. It just goes.

Exactly right.

Whether one "should" have this type of sound, or any other type of sound, is entirely a matter of taste or, to put in terms Raul might agree with, entirely a matter of which sounds most like real music to your ears.

Raul,

I received that Ortofon MM you recommended but I've not posted on your MM/MI thread because I haven't actually heard it yet. I wouldn't think it useful or courteous to post about something I haven't heard, would you?

Slowhand,

We heard the Voice in three rooms at RMAF, including Mosin's. (His table was our best-in-show BTW, though that was despite the arm and cartridge he was using, not because of them.) The Voice did the things I described in each system, as its bigger brother did once also (with the variations I mentioned). Take our impressions FWIW to you.

What we heard was a cartridge that's exceptional value for the money (as Mosin said) though not quite capable of the harmonic clarity we hear in the various (much costlier) LOMC's that I mentioned. (Aside to Mosin, the Olympos is a whisker on the romantic side of neutral, even Jonathon Carr will tell you that, but it's certainly clearer and more resolving than the Voice - as it should be for the price!) To our ears those LOMC's have played with less harmonic congestion than the Voice in any reasonably compatible system. I believe that addresses the question you asked as best as I can.

Chris,

Point taken about the plasma tweeters and in theory I agree. Of course there's more to designing a cartridge than just reducing moving mass, else my ADC XLM would be amongst the world's elite (it's not, trust me).

Your sense of articulation, timing and harmonics has always differed from ours (Paul's and mine). That's been obvious since the day we received our first Teres table. Multiple conversations since then have only confimed those differences.

As you know, things we report hearing have not always been confirmed by you and your listening friends. We react to certain sounds differently, in any system or room and even in the same system and room during the same session. I suspect this underlies our differing perceptions of the Voice as it has with other components, including some of your own manufacture.

The physical pain in Paul's face from distortions other people don't even notice is quite real, as multiple Audiogoners who've heard demoes in our system will attest. But that doesn't make what he hears any more or less "real" for the OP than what you hear. All any of us can do is describe what we hear, honestly and as best we can, and let him draw his own conclusions. Trying to prove each other "right" or "wrong" won't take us anywhere worth going.

Pentatonia,

Good report. You are one of only a handful of people I've "met" who's actually heard any model ZYX with the gold coils, and I entirely agree with you. I actually think you were a bit too polite (just like that cartridge!).

The gold coil UNIverse and Airy 3 (I've had both in my system) were so laid back they did a passable imitation of being asleep. I couldn't stand either one of them for more than 5 minutes.

The silver coil versions are better, though they're still much too "relaxed" or "smooth" for me.

So is any ZYX of the high output (.48mv) variety: slow, sluggish and unlively (though still tonally accurate, like any ZYX).

Only the copper coil, low output models provide good dynamics and detail. Read Arthur Salvatore's head-to-head review of the silver coil UNIverse (which he found quite ho-hum) vs. the the copper one (which blew him away). The gold coil version is much MORE ho-hum than the silver. They don't even sound like they came from the same workbench. If I were comparing a Voice to a gold Airy 3 I'd expect to hear exactly what you did.