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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
pindac's avatar
pindac
2,400 posts
 

I was listening to a Radio Programme the other day, where a recording was played from an Interview with a founder of the CD Technology as the World knows it.

The Interview went from the breakthrough to the Music Medium it was used for and how it compared to its predecessor the Vinyl LP.

The interviewee was biased to the core for CD 's superiority, making bold claims for how it was technically much improved over the capabilities of the Vinyl LP.

On Paper it might have been and on Paper as a medium for recording all different data it was much more versatile than the Vinyl LP.

40 Years in the debacle continues, there are still multiples, with an interest in replaying recorded music, that are not too sure of the Superiority of the CD as a Source, and who vociferously reject the notion, and remain with the tradition of using the Vinyl LP.

I wonder, if those who were at the forefront of the Vinyl LP Medium being produced, were as critical of the predecessor Shellac, and kept the putting down Shellac as a Medium for 40+ Years throughout the heyday of the Vinyl LP.

   

dover
2,178 posts
 

@pindac 

Many years ago I bought a Leak Stereo 20 off a guy and he gave me all his classical 33rpm records, including many superb recordings from the 50's/60's, for free when I picked the amp up.

I asked him why - he said he preferred 78's and was sticking with them.

pindac's avatar
pindac
2,400 posts
 

Absolutely Wonderful, we 'Love' what inspired, and will defend our choices made, unashamedly, with the ambient, baying in their attempts to put reputations at stake.

lewm
12,481 posts
 

Raul, once again you unfairly presume to know what I think. 

Ag insider logo xs@2x
rauliruegas
12,809 posts
 

@lewm  No, I did not, you posted: " 

" Which is maybe why it’s degenerated into an even more endless and unresolvable debate about analog vs digital "

If you already solved then why posted that? and if you resolved then please share with all of us your take. Welcomed.

 

R.

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