@dover as you know I greatly appreciate your expert opinion, but this needs to be corrected. As far as I know VdHul never used platinum magnets. However, he did use platinums coil wire for the Colibri. To the best of my knowledge he’s been the only cartridge designer who ever used this metal for coil wires. It seems particularly difficult to work with and when his supply of sufficient quality wire ran out, it was over. I have one of the last samples of the Colibri XPW African Blackwood, which I treasure. The word ‘coarse’ is about the last I would think of when describing the sound of this cartridge.
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.
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@dover sample variation probably goes a long way explaining your experience as the Colibris are more prone to this phenomenon that any other cartridge I can think of. As you know they’re also very picky about their companionship. By this I mean tonearm and phono device, not you of course 😋 |
every forum has it’s warts and baloney factor. and i’m on the outside of that WBF tribe you describe. but i can’t disagree it exists. i push back against it occasionally. most other forums are much more owner dominant than WBF. but it’s somewhat that way. if i’m choosing the least messed up forum, that would be WBF for it’s respect for listening perspectives. it allows discussions to happen without constant assaults from left field as happens here. the ratio of content to distraction is better. many very serious minded audiophiles are there. smaller group, a bit more intimate. so it’s where i’m most at home. but it’s far from perfect. yet the wild wild west of Audiogon has it’s attractions too. you just have to wear your iron underwear. it’s purely commercial so you have lots of ambulance chasing going on if you like that sort of thing. you can’t PM contact info. and the Audiogon interface is maddening. i barely tolerate it. i do like that i can post my system here. that has value to me. have a nice day. |
@mikelavigne Mike, I would have agreed with you about WBF up until RR got involved. Then, I believe that the owner dominance became prevalent, far more so than any other forum i belonged to. It was that dominance, albeit more subtle than some I can think of, but still more prevalent, that ultimately turned me off the site. To that, the mods/gorts clearly had their favorite members, whom they let say/post just about anything, and the rest were quickly censored...not my idea of equitable. Here, we have far more equity with the mods and I think a wider and more open minded group. I have noticed also that at WBF the topics and threads have become incredibly boring and dry...nothing to go there for in any way. YMMV. Have a nice day too.
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