Well, Syntax in his human materialistic form is 6 feet and 4 inches - rather tall and pretty grown up.
I wonder whether his critic here can match that ...
In any case - I had those top-flight MM and MI cartridges when they were new - not NOS ... - and used them with nice results. I still continued to listen with joy to the sound of the modified ML180 ( aside my LOMCs ...) in the early 1990ies - which was a steal for the money.
But I too saw the decline of the MM and MI ( aside from Joe Grado who never ever gave in ...) when high gain phono stages and high quality SUTs came up during the second half of the 1980ies.
I understand everyone who favors MM.
I understand everyone who wants to use the "straight in" approach with LOMCs too.
I used a cascaded Fet preamp with 78 dB phono gain in the early 1990ies. Enough gain to work even with a 0.15mV LOMC straight in.
Back then I was all in the "straight in"- camp and hated SUTs.
Till I first encountered a LOMC with a perfect matching SUT of top-quality.
I know too, that SUT is not en vogue in some parts of the american audio community. I have learned too, that technical and synergetic aspects of corresponding coils and thus truly matching SUTs for a given LOMC aren't appreciated in some circles either.
But all that is not my problem.
MM do have a strong following and ever had - and there are reasons for that. Those reasons however do not appeal to me, as I never had the problems they cure.
But who knows? Maybe soon we will see a new thread named "Who needs LOMC when we have MM ?" .... just kidding ...
The ideal SUT for the Olympos? - that was the initial question, wasn't it?
Simple and straight answer: a SUT with a primary matching the inductance of the Olympos' coil source inductance.
Further look out for maximum bandwidth (= lowest phase shift) and frequency extension especially in the low register.
The gain that SUT will offer is a direct result of the matching coils and will be between 16 and 22 dB.
The ideal SUT for a given cartridge is the corresponding 2nd half of an integrated system consisting of a moving coil cartridge and the matching SUT (not my idea, but the way it was intended to be by definition of the engineers who invented the moving coil principle in phono cartridges).
So that search should be guided by the technical parameters of the Olympos. Hardly by likes, dislikes, recommendations or caveats of other audiophiles who do not have the Olympos - nor do know what a quality SUT really is, how the synergy with the right LOMC works and how it shall be used.
Cheers,
D.
Cheers,
D.
