Garrard 301 - Project

Does anyone have any direct experience with Massif Audio record weight?  Exquisite wood work for sure, would love to hear your one on one experience. 

So many owners of vintage idler tables put, or leave on, vintage tonearms to achieve the proper look.  But, if one uses a state of the art modern arm on these tables, they are remarkable performers--lively, engaging and fun.  Many will, even when correctly reconditioned, have a bit more audible rumble than high end modern tables, but, that is a small price to pay for the positive attributes.  A local dealer recommends 301, 401 and Thorens 124 for customers whose systems are well into six figures -- he clearly thinks the tables are worthy.  One that I particularly liked has a 12" Wheaton Triplanar arm on it.

Check out my virtual system. Agreed!

Couple of updates, 2nd tonearm is going to be GrooveMaster IV with rotary lift base and titanium head shell. Also ordered, Acoustical Systems Helox clamp to  complement Artisan Fidelity hybrid platter + bearing, thanks @jperry for your recommendation. 

As far as cart, top two mono picks right now: Murasakino Sumile-mono vs Miyajima Zero or Infinity. I liked the GrooveMaster IV as 2nd tonearm, but I’m wrestling with whether the Sumile’s resolution and dynamic capability would outpace the GM IV (i.e., make it the bottleneck). @mikelavigne, you’ve chosen Sumile over Infinity — would you say it’s worth the jump, or is Miyajima Zero the smarter match for GrooveMaster IV? 

@lalitk 

@jazdoc 

it was worth the jump for me, but this is not so simple a question.

my local friend @jazdoc owns the Zero, and the Sumile mono. maybe he will chime in. i have heard both in his system; the Zero was excellent, now the Sumile mono is awesome there.

my perspective is that where you need to be on a mono cartridge comes down to one significant issue beyond assumed serious interest in mono pressings.

your stereo cartridge performance on mono pressings. how does it do?

this one is hard to qualify unless you already have a mono cartridge for reference. in my case for years i first owned a Miyajima Premium BE mono. a nice solid mono cartridge. made my mono pressings better. as my stereo cartridge performance improved, and their mono pressing performance improved, i decided to buy two Miyajima Infinity carts; one .7 stylus version, and one 1.0 stylus version and have both choices for various mono pressings. i do have maybe 30-40 wide groove mono pressings and hoped that would be optimal. and it was. but after a few years the improvement of my stereo cartridges caused me to again use them with my mono pressings. the advantages of the Infinity on mono pressings became trade-offs. the stereo carts were more refined. which then caused me to then sell the Infinity’s and buy the Sumile Mono.

now the Sumile mono matches the refinement and sexy bass of my stereo carts, and also adds the better lively presentation and mono directness.

so this is not any objective easy call. it’s all about the relative quality of your stereo cartridge performance on mono pressings. and you have to play a variety of mono pressings on both to really get a feel for how it works. the Zero or Infinity are both great mono carts, and it will take a quite amazing stereo cartridge/arm combo to surpass/equal either. but that can happen.

and the arm you place the mono cartridge on is also part of the equation when judging this compare.

@mikelavigne 

Thanks for laying that out so clearly. Your point about stereo carts on mono pressings really resonates. I hadn’t framed it in that way before. I can totally see how once your stereo cartridge performance reaches a certain refinement, it shifts the calculus on whether a dedicated mono is adding value or not. The Sumile’s ability to match that refinement and still bring the liveliness/directness of mono sounds like a real sweet spot, now that’s something I would love to hear in my system. 

As far as my stereo setup goes, I’m running an Etsuro Bordeaux on a Reed 3P, and will be moving up to the Etsuro Gold soon. Given that, I could play it safe and start with the Miyajima Zero (0.7mil, since my mono collection is small and mostly recent reissues from the past 5–10 years), and then look at the Sumile later if it feels like the right step. The Zero seems like the pragmatic move right now, but I can see the case for going straight to the Sumile too :-) 

And since you’ve heard both the Zero and Sumile in @jazzdoc system, that context is invaluable. Looking forward to hearing if he has any additional thoughts.

thank you again for your helpful perspective!