What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

@noromance , either you are a master at caring for your equipment or the people I know who have or have had Deccas are incredibly ham fisted. I have personally heard them miss track on material other cartridges handled effortlessly. I was never enamored by the SQ but I never did have one in my own system. At this point I would never recommend anyone get one unless they really did not care about throwing their money away.

@lewm , thank you and you are right. No human ear I know of can reliably call 0.3dB a change of volume but it can trick the ear into thinking a version sounds better.  Using channel balance as a gauge a 0.3 dB change will make a noticeable shift in the center image easily noticed by anyone. Having a digital volume control with resolution down to 0.1 dB I can demonstrate this to anyone. You would not notice it as a volume change just a shift in the center image. 

@rauliruegas , As with any generalization there are always ways to fail but as a useful rule If I increase the volume of one of two exactly identical passages 0.3 dB casual listeners will think the louder version sounds better without noticing the increase in volume. I know this because I make this demonstration all the time. I have a digital volume control with resolution down to 0.1 dB.  If you are doing this in real time on the same system all that other stuff you mention cancels out. everything you say is true but it is all easy to factor out of the equation. 

@intactaudio , it really depends on how you are listening to the volume. If you are just paying attention to a system's volume level then 1dB is a just noticeable difference but if you are listening in a comparative way as you are when listening to channel balance 1 dB is very noticeable and will cause a distinct shift in the center image. This also explains why some systems image poorly. The two channels have to have identical frequency response curves. If one channel is plus or minus a dB here or there the image blurs like an out of focus picture. The same speaker in two different locations will have two different response curves. Variances of 3-5 dB between channels at specific frequencies is common. I have seen upwards of 10 dB!

Have you questioned the calibration of your digital attenuators?

@mikelavigne, sorry about your decision to no longer post and I hope that it applies to this thread only.  Your comments are always appreciated. I respect and enjoy your approach to this hobby with its emphasis on trusting one’s ears.  I understand your reaction to the heavy handed style of some and have to wonder if the rigidity in their approach to this hobby kills the fun and and wonder of the music listening experience.  Listening to music is not a technical exercise.  

@lewm , Digital volume is very specific. 0 dB (0 dBFS) is the highest level achievable in a WAV audio file.  Digital volume controls are based on that standard. I have three independent ways of adjusting my gain structure and they all agree with each other perfectly as you would expect. In referring to dB most people are thinking of dB SPL. Where 0 dB is "the sound of a dead leaf hitting the ground in the fall." Anything quieter would be imperceptible. When I talk about how loud my system is playing I am referring to dB SPL as measured by a sound pressure level meter that in all likelihood is not very accurate.  When talking about signal volume I am referring to dBFS (decibels full scale)  I probably should have mentioned this earlier to get everyone on the same page. 

Another issue that frequently comes up is that digital volume controls "are inferior." This was true not all that long ago but now with 64 bit floating point processors the problems related to digital volume control such as loss of dynamic range have totally disappeared. You could lose over 1/2 the data and still be well above the highest sampling rates used.

As @rauliruegas will testify, digital audio opens up a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to system management and understanding. 

@mijostyn That's fine by me. But do you really think I'm going to sit there and listen to 4 mistracking cartridges for 35 years? I will admit that I had one in a LP12/Ittok back in the 80s and it did mistrack. Perhaps your impression comes from that sort of mismatch. It's easy to carry a misconception based on legacy intel. However, I do not have that issue now and the speed, realism, and clarity of these cartridges can be breath-taking.