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When I set up both these cartridges on SME's for Tang the Atlas didn't have any less extension than the Opus and both were equally dynamic. The difference is more in the character of these two cartridges, Opus 1 for me is sonically purer and in some regards closer to a great mm than an mc cartridge. This purity works well in a neutral tonearm but can come across as anemic in a more damped tonearm with something like carbon fibre. The tt plays a role here too, acrylic platter vs metal one!
david
Although it is different cart Gian's comment is worth hearing because he has been "living" with the two carts. People who lives with an equipment is more aware of its potential and limitation when different condition applies. It is difficult to find a person who has two same carts, two same tonearms to cut out variables in comparing two tts. Not many people have these in this forum. And you can never get a truly accurate tt comparison anyway when it comes to tt with its own tonearm like the Vyger.
More interesting to me is how the Vyger with its arm can transform the sound of Red Sparrow...adding body and bass to tone when they free up high but does't add anything lower down to the Opus.
Kind regards,
Tang
He is not saying atlas has lesser extension than the Opus... On the contrary..
What he is saying is that atlas had greater highs on the Bergmann as compared to the opus...i agree as I also compared those two on the Bergmann there, and that is also my general finding, vdh and Lyra have the highest highs.
However he is saying when Opus is on Vyger, and Lyra is on AF3p, instead of AF3p having higher highs due to the Lyra, Vyger did despite having the Opus.
Although it is different cart Gian's comment is worth hearing because he has been "living" with the two carts. People who lives with an equipment is more aware of its potential and limitation when different condition applies. It is difficult to find a person who has two same carts, two same tonearms to cut out variables in comparing two tts. Not many people have these in this forum. And you can never get a truly accurate tt comparison anyway when it comes to tt with its own tonearm like the Vyger.
More interesting to me is how the Vyger with its arm can transform the sound of Red Sparrow...adding body and bass to tone when they free up high but does't add anything lower down to the Opus.
Kind regards,
Tan
I agree living with carts is good. But what tops it all is doing analysis based on one video compare of unknown music...
Indeed Ked!--I sorta was following what you said--then it escaped me--sorry
-Ah such is the fun of this hobby!!BruceD
The difference between Vyger and Techdas is not so much about bass and soundstage alone. It is also about airbearing LTs and pivots as well and how people listen. I have generally found that people like General, Mik, Bill, and to an extent also Gian have a preference for the airiness, midrange, and nuance of LTs. While Mik is talking about Vyger, Airtangent, Rockports, and modded LTs, this nuance is also evident in the extremely short linear tracking arm of Pietro's Versa dynamics. It possibly comes due to the speed and lack of restraint due to no skating or anti skating among other things, possibly just better tracking. While the Bergmann Sindre was light in bass or slam, Gian and his friend Marco both preferred it due to the highs and the mids. These linear trackers also showed a high lack of arm color and transparency and change different carts as if the arm was not there.
I have found across 6 Vyger systems, that this nuance and speed obviously depends on downstream components, but the slower and less nuanced the system, the less the benefit or difference noticed.
I have found across 6 Vyger systems, that this nuance and speed obviously depends on downstream components, but the slower and less nuanced the system, the less the benefit or difference noticed.
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Do you know of any instances of a linear tracking tonearm on a TechDAS turntable?
Although it is different cart Gian's comment is worth hearing because he has been "living" with the two carts. People who lives with an equipment is more aware of its potential and limitation when different condition applies. It is difficult to find a person who has two same carts, two same tonearms to cut out variables in comparing two tts. Not many people have these in this forum. And you can never get a truly accurate tt comparison anyway when it comes to tt with its own tonearm like the Vyger.
More interesting to me is how the Vyger with its arm can transform the sound of Red Sparrow...adding body and bass to tone when they free up high but does't add anything lower down to the Opus.
Kind regards,
Tang
Hi Tang,
Agree with impressions from those that “live” with things and am sure Gian has very good ear and exceptional experience so wouldn’t disagree.
My point is that (arms aside because of obvious Vyger issue with own arm) it is most preferable to hear both TTs on same material with same cart. Drawing inferences with different carts is one extrapolation too far for me but ymmv.
Imo you should hear both with same cart and also different carts, as different arms are optimized for different carts. Both Vyger and basis arm will have certain carts that suit them best
I have tried various linear tracking arms on the Tech das air force one and two turntables and Airforce one p. My findings were that I likes the Kuzma Airline on the Airforce two it had great texture and bass weight highly nuanced, I found it needed a lot of playing around with compressors and needed a Silica dryer to be installed and a small amount of refrigeration. On the airforce one I could not use refrigeration and had to change the brand of filtration it was bit cloggy an and congested the the midrange lost flow. I liked the combination of Airforce two and Airtangent reference with standard compressor but with industrial dryers installed the best it seemed to breath incredibly the soundstage had tremendous width with a lack of grain in the midrange that the other combinations seemed to lack nuance was superb I have a unusual arm wand for the air tangent with a carbon moving assembly which sounded a lot better than the standard aluminium version. For sure its worth playing around with an air bearing on the techies but its not straight forward and can be rather frustrating as everything matters inc ar board materials. Overall the turntables offer a suitable stable platform that makes them perfect partners for linear trackers just have to combination that suits best and pursue getting the best results.
Its too open ended to say that linear trackers work well on the techies or not its about finding the right combination but the general impression is that they work extremely well.
Its too open ended to say that linear trackers work well on the techies or not its about finding the right combination but the general impression is that they work extremely well.
Mik, the moment you say industrial dryer and refrigerator, you've scared off 99.9999% of even the boldest vinylphiles.
Me, I'm amazed how good my £1k Terminator air LT arm is 6 years into ownership. Revealing, and effortlessly revealing, sums it up nicely. And no need for that dryer or refrigerator LOL.
Vic the designer has sold Terminators to clients who've installed them to replace Airlines and Airtangents.
Me, I'm amazed how good my £1k Terminator air LT arm is 6 years into ownership. Revealing, and effortlessly revealing, sums it up nicely. And no need for that dryer or refrigerator LOL.
Vic the designer has sold Terminators to clients who've installed them to replace Airlines and Airtangents.
I think we should also note this was Gian's first day with the AF3p. So we will have many more compares let's not scare him into putting it back in the box
Lol I would not put it in a box even if I did not like it, its still I nice object. With care and attention and patience one can certainly extract a lot from the turntable as it is certainly highly capable.
In isolation I am sure it can sound good to ones ears only by playing around and pushing things to the max one can then identify deficiencies, its a never ending quest hence why we all want the best.
My current status of lessons learned on AF3P:
- As AF3P has no integrated "suspension" system, the turntable is sensitive to placement.
(more than my former Micro Seiki SX 8000)
If you are not happy with performance, you might customize your base to the needs of AF3P.
- Different belts sound different, material and length of belt can easily heard. Tension is important too
I prefer the TechDAS recommendation: original belt with low tension
- Platter weights make a difference. if you like resolution and a more lean precise , deep base type of character, the gun metal Micro Seiki ST-10 or similar will work, more smooth with a darker character the Harmonix TU 812 will be the alternative. I like sweet and open vocals, so I use now the graphite Audio Tekne weight.
- smart Motorbase tuning: Place a small Artesania Damper on top of the Motor, diameter exactly fits.
Result is (little) more details without a change of tonal balance. As the Artesania Damper is "cheap", I like this
(will not work with 4 tone arms)
- Even if TechDAS are not offering Gun Metal ToneArmbases, they can make a difference, depending on the Tonearm. All original Micro Seiki Gun Metal Tonearmbases do fit, so depending on your tonearm, you should try. Principle logic is, that a heavy tonearm with high effective mass will benefit if fitted to a heavy tonearm base.
- Some tonearms to have the possibility to be fitted with a heavy nut underneath the tonearm base. This will work fine with AF3P (like SAEC, Ikeda, Fidelity Research)
more to come, still learning ...
In principle it can be said, that AF3P is much more "neutral" than AF3 or AFV. Both have in comparison a bass performance driven "jump factor" which makes fun in the beginning. In direkt comparison many friends do prefer AF3 or AFV immediately, but after a while, they realize, that AF3P is more "real".
So I am very much interested into your comparison with Vyger.
Is the AF3P any real competition to the SX-8000?
While you were talking all day of my TT,i finish now to work and i am starting to listen some,18.20 in Italy while my wife is cooking a special pasta.
Listening 3 of my reference lp now i can listen immediately that this combo is really high quality and something special,bass,mid bass and mid high are fantastic and sound and voice are very natural.
What i miss a little in front of Vyger are top details on high,and speed and dynamic that are little less,could be AF3P and Basis Superarm are a little on warm side and is a good match with Atlas sl.
Shakti also wrote that put the Artesania damper on motor to give little more transparency.On Vyger i don't need to put some for increase transparency,for example.
But there are also other different things like rack and cable
Rack of Vyger is very good because is the rack of Symon York plus a good stone,serena stone,while AF3 is on Torqueo base,made by hard wood and Ardesia stone but is on a terrible rack and then cable,Basis has own cable that distributor told is a special cable while Vyger as Kuro copper 7N cable with top Bocchino connector,also this will change some.
Both Opus and Atlas sl having low impedance are in the current input of P1
Here you can see the difference between Kuro and Basis cable,cannot try which is better because Basis is fixed
Next 2 days i can listen more,but already understand very well the difference like i already wrote.
If i will sell my Bergmann Sindre idea is to buy Bergmann Odin to put on AF3 with GFS,both on light side and very dynamic and fast
Regards
Listening 3 of my reference lp now i can listen immediately that this combo is really high quality and something special,bass,mid bass and mid high are fantastic and sound and voice are very natural.
What i miss a little in front of Vyger are top details on high,and speed and dynamic that are little less,could be AF3P and Basis Superarm are a little on warm side and is a good match with Atlas sl.
Shakti also wrote that put the Artesania damper on motor to give little more transparency.On Vyger i don't need to put some for increase transparency,for example.
But there are also other different things like rack and cable
Rack of Vyger is very good because is the rack of Symon York plus a good stone,serena stone,while AF3 is on Torqueo base,made by hard wood and Ardesia stone but is on a terrible rack and then cable,Basis has own cable that distributor told is a special cable while Vyger as Kuro copper 7N cable with top Bocchino connector,also this will change some.
Both Opus and Atlas sl having low impedance are in the current input of P1
Here you can see the difference between Kuro and Basis cable,cannot try which is better because Basis is fixed
Next 2 days i can listen more,but already understand very well the difference like i already wrote.
If i will sell my Bergmann Sindre idea is to buy Bergmann Odin to put on AF3 with GFS,both on light side and very dynamic and fast
Regards
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