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I have been listening to this LP for years. I often use it to confirm cartridge set up because of the harmonics of the two mandolins and their spatial relationship with and scale to the rest of the orchestra. ddk sent me one of his Technics EPC-205CMK3 cartridges a couple of days ago. I had heard about these and even read a little about them. I did hear one, or one similar, in David's system when I visited. It is the first moving magnet cartridge I have tried in my system.
Visible in the photo are the playing cards and the tiny allen wrench that I use to adjust the SME 3012R arm height. My new system seems to be so well matched and high in resolution that it is quite easy now to hear very subtle differences in cartridge adjustments. After 10-15 years of non use, this cartridge needs some time to break in and settle, but it is really starting to sound wonderful. In general, it is not quite as hyper and energetic as the vdH Colibris I have. The very leading edge is not as spotlit or pronounced, but, there is something about its overall balance and tone that just makes me want to relax and listen to music.
The cartridge seems well suited to this system, as one would expect knowing that David selected this very sample (out of nine he owns) for this particular system. This system is now a complete David Karmeli vision of Natural Sound. The Technics has a very beautiful tone. Everything seems in supreme balance. There is no spotlighting of anything. Dynamics are just a bit soft compared to the Colibris, but completely absent is the occasional aggression of the Colibris on close mic'd soprano or trumpet. Music is not pushed or forced out. It simply flows with great rhythm out of the speakers to fill the room. It is a more relaxed and calm sound. Scale, sense of space, expanding music and energy in the room, it is all there in a very natural presentation.
Nothing about this cartridge and system however sounds "vintage" or old fashioned. Rather, it lacks the "hifi" sounding artifacts so prevalent in the High End: highlighted details, black backgrounds, tight fast bass, pinpoint images, these are absent from my listening now. In their place, I hear huge amounts of natural resolution presented as a whole rather than as bits and pieces. Backgrounds are full of color. Acoustic bass and drums have hollow and resonating wooden bodies with textured vibrating string plucks, skins, and struck wooden sticks. Images are well proportioned with relative scale and they are not outlined or precise. Sound originates from areas that can be easily localized, but musicians and instruments are not so very clearly defined. The musicians are alive and breath, and sound surrounds the images, overlapping and spreading outward. The whole presentation is vibrant, alive and holistic.
This Vivaldi recording is very lovely. The battling mandolines go back and forth and pause for the rest of the orchestra. For years, there has always been something not quite right about their spatial relationship to each other. The left instrument was a bit lower and further back, the right one was a bit higher and more forward. I imagined that they should sound like they are side by side, spread out a bit at the front of the stage with the supporting instruments laid out behind and to the sides of them. Sadly, it just never quite sounded like I thought it should.
This afternoon, after I finished what I thought was a good job of fine tuning this new/old cartridge, I played this LP again. Laid out in front of me filling the entire front wall of my room, was a living breathing orchestra, extending back behind the front wall. The system disappeared, and the two mandolins appeared right in front of me, side by side, same height and distance from the front of the stage - just as I imagined it should sound for all these years. I was somewhat shocked. It was not a flaw in the recording as I had previously thought. It was the reproduction, the room layout, the cartridge set up, the system components, who knows? I was now hearing this favorite LP in an entirely new way with glorious string tone and harmonics filling the room.
I was left basking in the glorious swell of the orchestra and the two battling mandolines, back and forth, side by side, and then playing together in all their frenzy and chang ups. Their dialog was mesmerizing, so present were they in the room. The supporting strings grew in the background to fill the back of the stage. The clarity of the plucking, the beauty of the tone, the scale of the stage, the energy in the room. This is what Natural Sound is all about. David must be smiling to himself in Utah learning the system is starting to really come together.
