When I bought my Proteus they were £2900 in the UK, the US price was $6000. It faced tougher competition in the US at that price.
I haven’t seen mention of which arm the OP is using but assuming it’s medium mass the Winfield Ti might be a good choice that gives a different flavour to a trans but I’ve no direct experience. With a higher mass arm the Anna comes into play.
I did hear my Proteus on a WT Versalex, when a friend replaced his Radikalised Linn with one and before I bought the Aretmis/Schröder. On the Versalex a Dyna DRT VX-1t was hard to forget, the Proteus wasn’t.
Despite Mijostyn’s opinion I find the Royal N surprisingly good considering its price, with no tracking issues yet encountered nor lack of bass. My arm at 18g plus the Royal N with its cheese at 16g gives a mass of 34g total, an Ortofon TA210 has an effective mass of 5g without a headshell, an SPU G type weighs in at 30g, so only a gram more in total than I have. Frank Schröder, when supplying the brass mounting plate, did suggest I could double it up with the aluminium one if necessary but I find no need to. What there was a need for is fine adjustment of VTA and VTF and I’m glad I went for these options when commissioning my arm but it’s still a sensitive blighter to set up, every screw tension seems to make an audible difference.
I haven’t seen mention of which arm the OP is using but assuming it’s medium mass the Winfield Ti might be a good choice that gives a different flavour to a trans but I’ve no direct experience. With a higher mass arm the Anna comes into play.
I did hear my Proteus on a WT Versalex, when a friend replaced his Radikalised Linn with one and before I bought the Aretmis/Schröder. On the Versalex a Dyna DRT VX-1t was hard to forget, the Proteus wasn’t.
Despite Mijostyn’s opinion I find the Royal N surprisingly good considering its price, with no tracking issues yet encountered nor lack of bass. My arm at 18g plus the Royal N with its cheese at 16g gives a mass of 34g total, an Ortofon TA210 has an effective mass of 5g without a headshell, an SPU G type weighs in at 30g, so only a gram more in total than I have. Frank Schröder, when supplying the brass mounting plate, did suggest I could double it up with the aluminium one if necessary but I find no need to. What there was a need for is fine adjustment of VTA and VTF and I’m glad I went for these options when commissioning my arm but it’s still a sensitive blighter to set up, every screw tension seems to make an audible difference.