It's unlikely any "topnotch" audio system could come close to live, acoustic instruments, so I agree that would be a poor yardstick. I haven't personally heard any digital that matches our vinyl, though to be fair our vinyl front end cost more than those digital rigs you mentioned. There's no way to do what you described on the cheap. :-(
To our ears the UNIverse is still the most invisible cartridge we've never heard, though also the most finicky. It will play like a Strad, but only if you know how to let it. Its sweet spots are 10X smaller than any other cartridge I've used and the falloff in performance is rapid if you miss anything. If you want fun, this is it. ;-)
We haven't heard all the contenders of course, but we've not heard more lifelike reproduction from any other cart. See the review by my signature, several years old but we wouldn't change much if anything, except to add to the list of carts that can't touch it. Too bad it's discontinued and the remaining stock dwindling. Transfiguration Orpheus LO and Dyna XV-1S are pretty good too, and more easily available.
The copper coil, low output version is definitely the UNIverse to have (true of any ZYX). Other versions give up speed and dynamics or impose a Koetsu-like smoothation on the music, and we don't want to hear that. If I hear a component altering waveforms then it's unacceptable no matter how "musical" somebody thinks it sounds.
Similarly, fellow A'goner Mothra once said our preamp (which he now also has) is the only preamp he's never heard. That was lofty praise from a professional recording engineer and musician who's owned 20+ other good preamps and dumped them all. He defined what we're after in every component: nothing. So did the preamp's designer, Nick Doshi, whose signature phrase is "Enjoy music, tolerate equipment". Not bad for an engineer!
We're also classical listeners. Our acid test recordings are mostly our 100's of original/authentic instrument LP's by the likes of Hogwood, Harnoncourt, Scimone, etc. Harnoncourt's 70 LP survey of the Bach cantatas is particularly unforgiving of system eccentricities. Those records go from a glorious and intimate humanity to fingernails-on-slate in a heartbeat if a system isn't just right. They've embarassed some very pricey components visiting our home. I played one in another guy's system just once. He said it was the worst recording he'd ever heard. Little does he know that his system, which cost 3X what ours does, is just screwed up. ;-)
Doug
To our ears the UNIverse is still the most invisible cartridge we've never heard, though also the most finicky. It will play like a Strad, but only if you know how to let it. Its sweet spots are 10X smaller than any other cartridge I've used and the falloff in performance is rapid if you miss anything. If you want fun, this is it. ;-)
We haven't heard all the contenders of course, but we've not heard more lifelike reproduction from any other cart. See the review by my signature, several years old but we wouldn't change much if anything, except to add to the list of carts that can't touch it. Too bad it's discontinued and the remaining stock dwindling. Transfiguration Orpheus LO and Dyna XV-1S are pretty good too, and more easily available.
The copper coil, low output version is definitely the UNIverse to have (true of any ZYX). Other versions give up speed and dynamics or impose a Koetsu-like smoothation on the music, and we don't want to hear that. If I hear a component altering waveforms then it's unacceptable no matter how "musical" somebody thinks it sounds.
Similarly, fellow A'goner Mothra once said our preamp (which he now also has) is the only preamp he's never heard. That was lofty praise from a professional recording engineer and musician who's owned 20+ other good preamps and dumped them all. He defined what we're after in every component: nothing. So did the preamp's designer, Nick Doshi, whose signature phrase is "Enjoy music, tolerate equipment". Not bad for an engineer!
We're also classical listeners. Our acid test recordings are mostly our 100's of original/authentic instrument LP's by the likes of Hogwood, Harnoncourt, Scimone, etc. Harnoncourt's 70 LP survey of the Bach cantatas is particularly unforgiving of system eccentricities. Those records go from a glorious and intimate humanity to fingernails-on-slate in a heartbeat if a system isn't just right. They've embarassed some very pricey components visiting our home. I played one in another guy's system just once. He said it was the worst recording he'd ever heard. Little does he know that his system, which cost 3X what ours does, is just screwed up. ;-)
Doug