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The John Elison Challenge: some different results (long).

128.114.22.181

Posted by jsm on June 7, 2004 at 11:49:18

John Elison has provided three CD-Rs of the same music, two made from the same vinyl source using two different cartridges: the Dynavector DRT-XV-1 (DRT) and the Shure V15V xMR (V15), the former costing many times the latter. I will comment only on these two, as I didn't spend time listening to the CD-R made from the CD realease.

First, my equipment: Ayre CX-7 CD player, Plinius 8200 receiver, Spendor SP 100 speakers, and Rane ME-60 32 band equalizer (the significance of the latter will become apparent later).

The sound on the CD-Rs is superb! Congratualtions, John. No matter what people's opinion of the sound of CDs, these are excellent and free of any of the various faults attributed to Redbook CDs. They confirm my own experience: CDs from vinyl can sound virtually identical to the original.

First listening results: The differences between the DRT and the V15 are immediately obvious. They are not subtle, and they can be heard in a few seconds on any band of the discs. Compared to V15, the DRT sounds like a veil ( a thin one, to be sure) has been removed from the sound. The clarity and purity of the sound is obvious. The sound comes to life and my foot started tapping. It is as if one is listening directly to the source. The V15 has excellent sound, but is obviuosly rolled off in the high frequencies and seems to lack that pristine clarity ( that is, it has a very slight touch of grunge, which I will use as the opposite of clarity) and liveliness of the DRT. I could leave the room, have someone else put in either disc, re-enter the room and within seconds identify which was playing.

There was one instance where I preferred the V15. I generally listen only to classical music. On piano solos, the piano had a more realistic tonal balance to me with the V15 than with the DRT. I came to understand that later (discussed below).

Having experienced before the perception of liveliness and other distinct features of the DRT in speakers that had a more pronounced or extended high end, I wondered how much of the difference between the two was the different frequence response. I used the response curves posted by John to set my Rane EQ so as to boost the V15 to match as near as I could the frequncy response of the DRT. The differences over the virtually all of the range of my hearing are 2 db or less, and I don't know the accuracy of the Rane or my ability to set it at this level. Nevertheless, I did my best.

Now the results were quite different. The two cartridges sounded very similar. The V15 sounded quite lively and most of the veil was lifted. If I were to leave the room and re-enter not knowing which disc was playing, I'm not sure I could always identify which was playing, but I think I could most of the time. The DRT still had the greater clarity and purity of sound and with careful listening was unquestionably the better cartridge, but the differences were much smaller. It's possible that if I played with the EQ settings a bit, I could get them even closer, but I doubt I could ever make the V15 equal the DRT in that clarity of sound. That very slight grunge was always there in the V15

A side note: It is important to remember that the high frequency response affects the low frequencie as well. Mid- and low-frequency transients that are fast depend on high frequency content. Thus the sharpness of the leading edge of piano notes can sound softer if there is significant roll-off of higher frequencies.

To close the loop, I next set the Rane to depress the frequency response of the DRT to match the V15. Once again they sounded very similar, and once again careful listening showed that the DRT had same greater clarity of sound. (One conclusion from this is that the Rane itself cannot be having a significant adverse effect on the sound. Only one cartridge at a time was going through it during a comparison, and regardless of which one it was, the same fine subtleties could be heard in the comparison.)

The conclusions: Both of these cartridges are superb and close in sound if corrected for frequecy response, but in my opinion the DRT is clearly the superior one. I could easily live with either. Based on this admittedly very limited hearing, I think the DRT is among the best cartridges I have ever heard. However, this experience reinforced something I have seen many times: relatively small difference in frequency responce can lead to very different perceptions of the quality of the sound. It would be very nice to repeat this challenge on a different kind of music, especially classical. I mentioned that I preferred the tonal balance of the V15 on the solo piano. I think this a result of primarily listening to classical music, with the concert hall as the standard reference. In a concert hall, a significant percentage of sound is reflected and depressed in high frequenced content, so that overall the sound may be a bit "rolled off" compared to a flat response. The roll off of the V15 more accurately simulated this to my ears, but of course this isn't calssical music and probably doesn't sound this way in person.

Many thanks to you, John, for providing the material for a very entertaining afternoon.

jsm

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Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.

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