Bill Epstein Messages: 1088 Registered: May 2009 Location: Smoky Mts. USA
Illuminati (2nd Degree)
The DE-250 must really like the 45 Amp.
Almost immediately upon installing the ZYX R-50 Bloom on Saturday, I knew what was needed. This is by far the best cartridge I've had in my system. It's so dynamic and quiet in the groove there's no sense of anything mechanical occurring. It's frequency response doesn't favor any octave; the slightly unsettling "stuffiness" I heard in the treble response was spotlighted as an issue to be dealt with.
I have to admit that the frequency response of the music is now just a "steenth" (as we used to say in the OTC market) toward treble brightness but that's no vice when Dizzy Gillespie's high notes or anyone's First Violins sound so wonderful to 66 year old ears.
***In case anyone's wondering about whether the cartridge was 'broken in' enough to hear what's really happening, it's a reviewers sample and had about 100 hours on it when it arrived Saturday. That's poster tack as a headshell weight. The R50 only weighs 5 grams. I added 3 grams of the sticky stuff to get the arm resonance to 10 Hz. I've made a 3 gram aluminum plate to fit onto the top of the arm but it needed longer screws not yet arrived***
Many, even most, audio upgrades are subtle and even debatable. There is nothing subtle about the leap up from any other cartridge I've tried including Grado Sonata, Benz Ace, DL-103r or Soundsmith re-built Aurum Beta S. And it's the bottom of the ZYX line!
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