Sidebar 1: Listening To The Vessel (and Some Competitors)
Thanks to engineer/producer René Laflamme, who generously allowed Stereophile the rights to needle-drop a track from 2XHD's Audiophile Analog Collection Vol.3, Marie Saintonge's "Traversia."
I chose this track because it offers percussive textures and both low- and high-frequency details, plus it's well-played music. Saintonge's flute carries the song, with support from acoustic guitar and bass, and various percussion and hand-claps.
For comparison sake, I also made needle-drops of "Traversia" with an Audio-Technica AT-VM95E and Ortofon 2M Red. Those two entry-level cartridges, with bonded elliptical styluses, are competitors to The Vessel A3SE.
These needle-drops were made with The Vessel moving-magnet cartridge system, made by Excel Sound Japan and sold by LP Gear. The cartridge was set up in my Technics SL-1200mkV turntable with KAB fluid damping, 3-speed and tonearm rewiring mods. It was connected to my ProJect Phono Box RS2 preamp by a vintage SME cable. The preamp was directly connected, via balanced XLR cables (Mogami) to my Tascam DA-3000 digital recorder. I used the Analogue Productions Test LP to calibrate output level and channel balance (1kHz tone calibrated to –14dBFS). I did no "post-production" cleanup of surface noise or level normalization. What you hear is what came out of the cartridge and preamp.—Tom Fine
Here is The Vessel A3SE, bonded elliptical stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is The Vessel A3SV, nude hyper-elliptical stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is The Vessel A3SM, nude micro-line stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is The Vessel A3SS, nude Shibata stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is The Vessel R3SS, nude Shibata stylus, ruby cantilever:
Here is The Vessel B3SS, nude Shibata stylus, boron cantilever:
Here is the Audio-Technica AT-VM95E, bonded elliptical stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is the Ortofon 2M Red, bonded elliptical stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Thanks to engineer/producer René Laflamme, who generously allowed Stereophile the rights to needle-drop a track from 2XHD's Audiophile Analog Collection Vol.3, Marie Saintonge's "Traversia."
I chose this track because it offers percussive textures and both low- and high-frequency details, plus it's well-played music. Saintonge's flute carries the song, with support from acoustic guitar and bass, and various percussion and hand-claps.
For comparison sake, I also made needle-drops of "Traversia" with an Audio-Technica AT-VM95E and Ortofon 2M Red. Those two entry-level cartridges, with bonded elliptical styluses, are competitors to The Vessel A3SE.
Here is The Vessel A3SV, nude hyper-elliptical stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is The Vessel A3SM, nude micro-line stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is The Vessel A3SS, nude Shibata stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is The Vessel R3SS, nude Shibata stylus, ruby cantilever:
Here is The Vessel B3SS, nude Shibata stylus, boron cantilever:
Here is the Audio-Technica AT-VM95E, bonded elliptical stylus, aluminum cantilever:
Here is the Ortofon 2M Red, bonded elliptical stylus, aluminum cantilever:
