I was lucky to be able to obtain a Top Wing Blue Dragon (Seiryu) cartridge for short term demo recently. Here are my initial notes after installing and spending several hours listening. I also hope to see others post impressions as well.
The Blue Dragon is mounted to my 11" Kuzma 4-point arm that has been upgraded with sapphire pivots and rewired with Kondo cable.
I aligned to Lofgren B and set tracking force to 1.9g, which is center-high in the recommended 1.75g - 2.0g range. Other parameters such as azimuth and SRA were adjusted by ear, with anti-skate in the middle of its adjustable range.
During alignment, I noted that this demo cart probably has a compromised suspension. The cantilever is visibly askew. I was able to compensate and get things very close, though if this were a newly purchased cart, it'd be rejected. I don't know what kind of prior (ab)use this one has seen, but I hope this isn't a sign of any lack of mechanical robustness.
The above photo shows the cantilever prior to my compensating adjustments. After aligning the cart and some rough by-ear tweaking, I pulled several LPs to begin real listening. By default, I like to use the Kuzma periphery ring on my Stabi M platter, even with flat records, but I noticed that the Blue Dragon was riding too low. The body of the cartridge actually rests on the lip of the periphery ring when the stylus is in the lead-in groove and well into the first track on the LP. I do hope this is abnormal, and maybe a symptom of the suspected suspension issue. But for this demo, I either can not use the periphery ring or I can not listen to the first track of LPs. Ugh.
Either way, on to listening. A very important (IMO) feature of my Emia phono is that the input loading is not the standard 47k MM load. Instead, it's 270k in order to make SUT compatibility with almost any cart possible. Knowing I'd be trying out the Top Wing, I asked Dave Slagle for a loaner SUT with higher winding impedance and lower turns ratio than what I currently use with my Transfiguration Proteus. Dave, being awesome, kindly obliged. And I still believe, more so after experimentation, that this cart has a higher inductance than MC carts, meaning that the final load impedance value it sees needs to be higher than usual. This bears out with my listening notes. Using a 1:20 5 Ohm SUT, the cart was lean at the bottom end. It also seemed to lack snap and swing. This SUT has a winding impedance that is too low for the Top Wing, and reflects 675 ohms to the cart. However, the story changed after switching to the 1:15 40 ohm silver SUT that Dave loaned to me. Now the cart sees a 1200 ohm load impedance and a winding impedance that is a better match to its internal impedance. And with this, the bass filled out and the overall sound had swagger.
I've gone through various LPs now from jazz, rock, girl-with-guitar, direct to disc piano, folk and more, and I think the character of the Blue Dragon is clear. It has a presentation that extends behind the speakers, placing the listener further from the performance than most other carts. Its depth is quite remarkable. And at the same time, the Blue Dragon extracts a lot of detail. Sitting further from the music while hearing more detail is odd at first. But it does exceed my Proteus in the detail extraction department, and it does so in a smooth and refined, non-fatiguing manner which becomes really addicting. It makes you want to increase the volume. However, if you're looking for a presentation that envelopes the listener, then this cart isn't it. Still, it certainly does create a wide and tall soundstage with grand scale. I was listening to a few records with my dog, who listens to music fairly attentively. ;-) And when a cymbal crash would occur, he'd look quickly up near the ceiling trying to find the source of the sound. Musicality is spot on. It's not a cart that accentuates mid bass, nor treble. It just seems even handed across the spectrum. Not much added nor subtracted, and not dry nor wet. In terms of dynamics, I will say I do find it a bit reserved. Not disappointingly so, but it's not a cart that slams and shimmers. I've seen it described as a fast cart. I'd say it's reasonably fast, and definitely not rounded. But it's not the fastest, snappiest cart I've heard, either. My Proteus has it beat there. Even so, I kept thinking the Blue Dragon sounded a bit more natural, erring less on the impress-your-friends side of things. And the Blue Dragon's handling of complexity (e.g. Mingus) is excellent. Things never get muddy, undefined, nor homogenized. Image placement in all three dimensions is very precise.
Overall, I do think this is a very good cartridge. Its presentation is very much to my liking and its strengths are quite unique. The keywords here are effortless and refined. I know I'm going to be unhappy when I return it.
The Blue Dragon is mounted to my 11" Kuzma 4-point arm that has been upgraded with sapphire pivots and rewired with Kondo cable.
I aligned to Lofgren B and set tracking force to 1.9g, which is center-high in the recommended 1.75g - 2.0g range. Other parameters such as azimuth and SRA were adjusted by ear, with anti-skate in the middle of its adjustable range.
During alignment, I noted that this demo cart probably has a compromised suspension. The cantilever is visibly askew. I was able to compensate and get things very close, though if this were a newly purchased cart, it'd be rejected. I don't know what kind of prior (ab)use this one has seen, but I hope this isn't a sign of any lack of mechanical robustness.
The above photo shows the cantilever prior to my compensating adjustments. After aligning the cart and some rough by-ear tweaking, I pulled several LPs to begin real listening. By default, I like to use the Kuzma periphery ring on my Stabi M platter, even with flat records, but I noticed that the Blue Dragon was riding too low. The body of the cartridge actually rests on the lip of the periphery ring when the stylus is in the lead-in groove and well into the first track on the LP. I do hope this is abnormal, and maybe a symptom of the suspected suspension issue. But for this demo, I either can not use the periphery ring or I can not listen to the first track of LPs. Ugh.
Either way, on to listening. A very important (IMO) feature of my Emia phono is that the input loading is not the standard 47k MM load. Instead, it's 270k in order to make SUT compatibility with almost any cart possible. Knowing I'd be trying out the Top Wing, I asked Dave Slagle for a loaner SUT with higher winding impedance and lower turns ratio than what I currently use with my Transfiguration Proteus. Dave, being awesome, kindly obliged. And I still believe, more so after experimentation, that this cart has a higher inductance than MC carts, meaning that the final load impedance value it sees needs to be higher than usual. This bears out with my listening notes. Using a 1:20 5 Ohm SUT, the cart was lean at the bottom end. It also seemed to lack snap and swing. This SUT has a winding impedance that is too low for the Top Wing, and reflects 675 ohms to the cart. However, the story changed after switching to the 1:15 40 ohm silver SUT that Dave loaned to me. Now the cart sees a 1200 ohm load impedance and a winding impedance that is a better match to its internal impedance. And with this, the bass filled out and the overall sound had swagger.
I've gone through various LPs now from jazz, rock, girl-with-guitar, direct to disc piano, folk and more, and I think the character of the Blue Dragon is clear. It has a presentation that extends behind the speakers, placing the listener further from the performance than most other carts. Its depth is quite remarkable. And at the same time, the Blue Dragon extracts a lot of detail. Sitting further from the music while hearing more detail is odd at first. But it does exceed my Proteus in the detail extraction department, and it does so in a smooth and refined, non-fatiguing manner which becomes really addicting. It makes you want to increase the volume. However, if you're looking for a presentation that envelopes the listener, then this cart isn't it. Still, it certainly does create a wide and tall soundstage with grand scale. I was listening to a few records with my dog, who listens to music fairly attentively. ;-) And when a cymbal crash would occur, he'd look quickly up near the ceiling trying to find the source of the sound. Musicality is spot on. It's not a cart that accentuates mid bass, nor treble. It just seems even handed across the spectrum. Not much added nor subtracted, and not dry nor wet. In terms of dynamics, I will say I do find it a bit reserved. Not disappointingly so, but it's not a cart that slams and shimmers. I've seen it described as a fast cart. I'd say it's reasonably fast, and definitely not rounded. But it's not the fastest, snappiest cart I've heard, either. My Proteus has it beat there. Even so, I kept thinking the Blue Dragon sounded a bit more natural, erring less on the impress-your-friends side of things. And the Blue Dragon's handling of complexity (e.g. Mingus) is excellent. Things never get muddy, undefined, nor homogenized. Image placement in all three dimensions is very precise.
Overall, I do think this is a very good cartridge. Its presentation is very much to my liking and its strengths are quite unique. The keywords here are effortless and refined. I know I'm going to be unhappy when I return it.
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