What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?


I believe that a cartridge and a speaker, by far, contribute the most to SQ.

The two transducers in a system.

I bit the bulllet and bought a Lyra Atlas SL for $13K for my Woodsong Garrard 301 with Triplanar SE arm. I use a full function Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp. My $60K front end. It is certainly, by far, the best I have owned. I read so many comments exclaiming that Lyra as among the best. I had to wait 6 months to get it. But the improvement over my excellent $3K Mayijima Shilabi was spectacular-putting it mildly.

I recently heard a demo of much more pricy system using a $25K cartridge. Seemed to be the most expensive cartridge made. Don’t recall the name.

For sure, the amount of detail was something I never heard. To hear a timpani sound like the real thing was incredible. And so much more! 
This got me thinking of what could be possible with a different kind of cartridge than a moving coil. That is, a moving iron.

I have heard so much about the late Decca London Reference. A MI and a very different take from a MC. Could it be better? The World’s Best? No longer made.

However Grado has been making MI cartridges for decades. Even though they hold the patent for the MC. Recently, Grado came out with their assault on “The World’s Best”. At least their best effort. At $12K the Epoch 3. I bought one and have been using it now for about two weeks replacing my Lyra. There is no question that the Atlas SL is a fabulous cartridge. But the Epoch is even better. Overall, it’s SQ is the closest to real I have heard. To begin, putting the stylus down on the run in grove there is dead silence. As well as the groves between cuts. This silence is indicative of the purity of the music content. Everything I have read about it is true. IME, the comment of one reviewer, “The World’s Best”, may be true.
 

 

mglik

Showing 5 responses by larryi

Wow, lots of different subjects being covered here, and all of them are interesting.  For the matter of using Quad 57 speakers,  I personally like them, regardless of their shortcomings.  I've heard the Dave Slagle stacked Quads and dedicated tube amps, including a setup that used two stacks of two per channel (four 57's per channel).  I liked the two 57 per channel setup, but, there were other Quad 57 fans who actually preferred a simple pair of Quad 57s over any stacked array.  Again, it is a matter of personal preference. 

The only field coil cartridges I have heard are the Audio Note cartridge and a Denon 103 that Dave Slagle modified to use field coil magnets.  Both are very lively sounding cartridges.  My experience with field coils is more in the way of speakers, and I have heard several systems with both a solid state and a tube power supply for the magnets.  I was frankly shocked, and somewhat disappointed, that the tube power supply sounded considerably better.  I was disappointed because a solid state power supply would be much more convenient--less heat, no concern over tube replacement, and much better voltage stability (the tube supply changed voltage as everything warmed up, and it required more adjustment to maintain optimal sound).  

Raul,

On several occasions I heard A system I am familiar with that had a replacement solid state power supply in it while it’s regular tungar tube power supply was being worked on or was out on loan to someone else.  Both times I commented on the sound being “off” when I didn’t even know that the solid state supply was being used.  In a different system, a friend of mine tried his Feastrix solid state power supply in place of another tungar supply, for a direct comparison, and again the tube supply was superior.  The drivers that were involved were Western Electric 555 midrange compression drivers.  It is a mystery to me why there should be much of a difference, one way or the other because in these instances, the supply is only being asked to deliver 24 volts dc.

Maybe, but I know some people with Thorens 124 or Garrard 301 or 401 tables and  top Koetsus.  A local dealer put together a $1.5 million system with a reconditioned 124 and Koetsu Blue Lace.  

One more thing about field coil cartridges--the Audio Note cartridge got quite hot; I did not dare to touch the Denon 103 modified to be a field coil cartridge, so I don't know if it too gets hot.

There are other somewhat exotic designs out there that I've heard, although it has been quite a few years since hearing some of them.  I thought that the field effect transistor cartridge was interesting in design, and it sounded pretty good.  This cartridge uses a permanently charged electret attached to the cantilever as the gate element in a field effect transistor.  This cartridge required a power supply and wiring to feed juice to the cartridge.

Recently, I heard the Audio Technica ART 1000 cartridge which has two small loops of wire fixed to a tiny plate that attaches to the cantilever immediately behind the stylus.  That plate, with its tiny coils fit into a magnetic gap placed extremely close to the stylus.  I liked the sound of this cartridge--it was lively and engaging while not being thin and analytical as some other "fast" sounding cartridges.  I don't know where it would fit in anyone's "best" ranking, but, it is, in my opinion, a very good cartridge.

I have terrific sounding recordings in both digital and analogue format, so I am not taking sides.  But, the notion that digital is so deleterious that it is unlistenable is ridiculous.  On a Chesky test CD/Jazz sampler, they have a music recording which has been converted between digital and analogue 100 times; listen for yourself to see how much progressive damage has been done by digital encoding and decoding.