4 stars for value! Sound, being a tough judge, is more like a 3 star rating, but considering a 5 star rating enters the real high end club, that is not bad at all!
I had first tried this in a quick setup on a old Akai AP-207 direct drive automatic table, that has to be tweaked to my likes yet. It was better than expected, but something was a bit off. It is a strange anatomy thing with my ears, as they clog up quite painfully, when there is some phase shift or deep resonance. But most people don't get that.
So I just mounted it in a Dual headshell and put it on my Dual 510 with upgraded mat, running through a Pro-Ject Phono-Box S2 into an SAE TWO R3C.
Nowhere near broken in, but new out of box, it now first played a record with Carmen McRae, and I thought "Not bad at all".
So put on Grace Jones "Slave To The Rythm".
HOLY MOLY!
That percussion was alive and cracking!
The intro to the last track "Miss Grace Jones" starts with a "ting" from a triangle. It is loud and clear!
There are some sounds you cannot even hear on some systems, mainly the slowly growing trombone bursts that come out of the background a few times, like some lurking animal about to pounce on you, and end in a "whup" sound effect as they cut off. The Shure M91 with SAS and Audio Technica OC9ML render them nicer and rounder. BUT they are also well broken in. The OC9ML is now on the ML/II version and sells for 419 dollars on this site. The SAS styli are now no longer 139 dollars, but instead somewhere around 300 a pop.
What an unfair contest, for this little cartridge, that is giving it all an honest shot!
The closest I have had in hand and tried at around 100 dollars in today's market is the Ortofon 2M-Red. I no longer have it, because I only kept what I actually listen to, but from memory, this Carbon Fidelity is pretty close, but already more lively sounding. I mean this has a fun factor.
I only hope it loses that strange effect on my ears after breaking in...
To be recommen...
