Phono Cartridge Reviews

Equipment used for my tests included a SOTA Sapphire turntable fitted with the SME Series V tonearm and the Well-Tempered Arm (the Versa Dynamics is temporarily down; see "Follow-up" in this issue), a Stax Quattro CD player, a Revox A-77 15ips open-reel tape deck, the Threshold FET-10 line preamplifier, Threshold SA-1 power amplifiers, and Sound Lab A-3 full-range electrostatic speakers. Audio interconnects were Monster 1000s, speaker cables were Straight Wire Ribbons. The listening room is extensively damped with ASC Tube Traps. Program material was some of my own tapes and CDs for reference purposes, and analog discs from Sheffield, Opus 3, Telarc, and Reference Recordings.—J. Gordon Holt