Raul, As you know, I like what you are doing. And thru following in your footsteps (to a degree but making my own choices along the way), I am having more pure "fun" than ever with this hobby. I will always be grateful that you stimulated me/us to take a second look at this great class of cartridges. But any decent philosopher past or present would tell you that it is folly to argue from first principles what is "best". So I am kind of not with you in this case. (Also, I am jealous because I don't own a EPC P100C and can no longer get one.) It's perfectly ok to say that the Technics is the "best you have ever heard in your system". Why not leave it at that? What happens if you now audition the AKG P100LE (for one example, and which you told us you own but have not heard) and find it to be superior to the Technics? There are also some purportedly great Stanton/Pickering ultimate "low output" MMs that I don't think any of us have heard. I guess this is why Don Quixote did what he did. |
I am afraid that if we met in person, you guys would find out that I am a 21-year-old shapely blond female, and you would no longer pay any attention to anything I say. (Of course, if this were true, I would stay home looking at myself all the time and not give a hoot about audio.) Also, I confess that I want an Olympos AND an MC A90. Also, I change my own mind daily about which of the good to great cartridges I own is best (even though so far I own none of the "best" except the Colibri), and I even think it depends on the particular peculiarities of the LP I am trying to play.
I will be in Geneva for a WHO meeting the last 5 days of April. When is the show in Munich? |
Dear DT. Thank you for the kind invitation to meet up with you in Munich. However, I have a tendency to forget that my government places stringent rules on international travel by its employees, of which I am one. Under those rules, I can only vacation for an extra day or two when I travel to attend scientific meetings. (In the good old days of the 70s and 80s, I would vacation in Europe for as much as two weeks in connection with travel to a meeting held there.) Thus I have already returned from Geneva and could not have gone on to Munich. I saw some wonderful cars in Geneva, and that's about it. See you in Denver, perhaps. I am determined to attend RMAF this year, on my own time.
Dear Downunder, I am "really" Lew, and my last name begins with M. If I were to do it again, I would use a more creative moniker, like "Upover". |
Dowunder, I want it. Really. Your pal, Lew |
I agree with your implication that rapid evaluations are fruitless, DU. I take at least a month or two with each cartridge. That's why so far I have only gone thru the Azden and the Ortofon. I completely agree, at least for me, that snap judgements are worthless where novel audio gear is concerned. Moreover, I advocate going back and forth between the new and the familiar (i.e., an A-B-A comparison instead of an A-B comparison), because it has been proven that the brain is biased in favor of the new or novel sensory experience vs the old or familiar one. One of the virtues of having a couple of turntables is that one can keep a familiar cartridge up and running whilst listening also to new ones. Right now I am actually tired of auditioning the Azden but I am reluctant to go away from it until I have figured out what I think of it. I still have not got a bead on it, except to say it is good but certainly not perfect. And I am not ready to say it is categorically better than the Ortofon. |
Raul, You have an endless reservoir of self-confidence. This will overcome any amount of self-doubt. But you certainly have changed your mind quite a bit over the course of those 2000+ posts that you have in part stimulated. This is your perfect right, but it does illustrate my point, so I won't retract it. One reason I take so long to evaluate a cartridge is that I only can listen for about 5-10 hours/week. I think you are able to put in much more time per day or week, so of course you can move faster and still do a good job of it, most of the time.
Siniy, You wrote, "greatness of the cartridge will be evident from few first hours". I could not agree more, and its shortcomings will be evident only after a longer audition and careful comparison to some in-house standard, IMO. However, I do agree with you on the idea of the cartridge as musical instrument. This is precisely where I am going with my long audition of the Azden, comparing it to either the Koetsu Urushi (lush, romantic) or to the Colibri (speed and detail), mounted on other turntables. If you accept that concept, then of course there can be no absolute "best" for all purposes. |
Sorry about the above post. I thought I was on the MM/MI thread at the time. I do not claim that the Azden YM-P50VL is the "absolute" best cartridge, by any means. The rest of that post was OT, too. |
Dear Raul, Sometimes I write things just to stimulate discussion, but I am also "hampered" in a way by my training as a scientist. In real science, nothing should be subjective; in audio, we are usually left with subjective judgements, and we cannot do any better. Thus I have a hard time making a commitment based on what are always flawed and usually subjective data. Of course, when something sounds really terrible (to my ears), it's easy. But we are picking and choosing among high quality bits of merchandise here.
I know what you mean about tracks on particular LPs. I have two or three of those, too. I must admit the Azden kicks butt on the LP tracks I know so well. But then I have to ask myself whether it was just fortuitous that there is a particular affinity between the Azden and those tracks that I like to use as standards, because on some less familiar material, the Azden does not always crush the competition. |
OK. Now I think I can place the Azden cartridge. It is a great one for sure. Now I have to go listen to more different cartridges and also try the Azden in different set-ups, before I could ever give it a rating on a 1 to 10 scale. (But surely is up there at between 8 and 10 based on my past.
Raul, you have to realize that until I "took the plunge" about 2-3 years ago, I never before owned more than one turntable/tonearm/cartridge at any one time. And turntables lived in my system for a very long time between "upgrades" from one to the next. I never would have believed that tonearms (once one limits oneself to "good" ones) and turntables of a similar cost and quality could sound so different and affect one's impression of a cartridge so greatly. For stimulating me to embark upon this learning experience, I do thank you, Raul, and I also have to thank the Lenco users for first provoking me to think outside the belt-drive box. That odyssey led to this one. |
