Gramophone Dreams

After 30 sides

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee

Playing my father's favorite song, Stephen Foster's haunting "Beautiful Dreamer," sung by baritone Leslie Guinn on Songs by Stephen Foster (Nonesuch stereo LP H-71268), the SL MK II delivered enough transparency to see the usually obscured walls and floor of the recital room where "Dreamer" was recorded using "historical instruments at the Smithsonian Institute, in Washington, DC." The MK II recovered more of "Dreamer"'s moodiness than the old SL did. This track, along with "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," kept my mind striving to imagine the nature of the divide that separates us from those who've passed over.

Oh! I sigh for Jeanie with the light brown hair,
Floating, like a vapor, on the soft summer air.

Loaded at 500 ohms, the Hana SL MK II presented this Stephen Foster recording in a crisp unaffected manner. Tone character was VG+. Transparency was 80% of the Umami Blue's. Loaded at 100 ohms, the sound got quieter, wetter, and more seductive. Tone character improved to E—Excellent. Transparency was now 90%. I did the rest of my listening at 100 ohms.

More incredibly, while playing Béla Bartók: Deux Images/Two Rhapsodies, recorded in 1950 in Kingsway Hall, London (Bartók Records LP BR-307), the MK II came on forcefully with some edgy high-torque macrodynamics. I did not anticipate this amount of expressionistic flair. The original SL emphasized the lyrical side of Deux Images, showcasing the sensual allure of orchestral sound. The MK II showed me a doomier, more revolutionary side.

Life is cool running when I'm bouncing to grooves produced by Clement "Coxsone" Dodd at Studio One Records in Kingston, Jamaica. Feeling an urge for some dreamy ska moments, I let the SL MK II steer its way through Ride Me Donkey: Solid Gold From Jamaica (First label Studio One PSOL 7777). Folks, you have not fully lived till you've heard Jackie Mittoo playing his Hammond B3 on "Soul Call" or bobbed your head through "Miss Hiti-Tite" with its rocking-horse beat. This album is a Coxsone anthology of Jamaican ska and rocksteady created to be a peaceful donkey ride through the beats on the streets and sounds of radio in Kingston, Jamaica, ca 1968.

Donkey's syncopated flow put me in a nostalgic mood. I thought the "new II" with its tapered shank and Shibata stylus played Ride Me Donkey with more scooter and Red Stripe authenticity than the MicroLine Umami Blue.

Hana's original SL was an easy-flowing cartridge with a natural demeanor that did not sacrifice focus or musical form when presenting complex recordings, but it was a little shy on quickness. Boogie slam and jump factor were not its strong points. The SL MK II's heavier body, lower impedance coils, and tapered-tube cantilever seem to have addressed these deficiencies. On my record player, the MK II sounded noticeably speedier, clearer, harder hitting, and more alpha than the original SL, which it will be replacing.

DS Audio HS-001 Headshell
All of these auditions were performed with the SL MK II attached to a $450 DS Audio HS-001 headshell (footnote 5) on a Sorane SA-1.2 tonearm, with an AudioQuest Yosemite tonearm cable into a Mobile Fidelity Electronics MasterPhono phono preamplifier. The rest of the system was my HoloAudio Serene preamp, First Watt SIT-4 amplifier, and Falcon Gold Badge LS3/5a speakers.

I have a diverse herd of cartridges bolted to a diverse assortment of headshells by Thomas Schick, Jelco, SME, Ortofon, Audio-Technica, LP Gear, and others. None of those feel more rigid or precision-crafted—or more luxuriously finished—than DS Audio's made-in-Japan HS-001, which DS Audio says is machined from a solid billet of "ultra-duralumin" and which features the sturdiest, most expensive-looking Litz wires I've ever seen on a headshell.

Whether the HS-001's sonic gifts are commensurate with its price is a difficult question to answer. But I think it's an important question because I regard headshells as transducer platforms, like speaker stands. As such, there are a variety of unsubtle ways they can affect a sound system's focus, clarity, and rhythm-keeping. So naturally I was curious to see if I would notice some kind of sonic difference between DS Audio's HS-001 and my default reference headshell, Jelco's HS-25.

I listened to Hana's original SL first on the Jelco, which features top and bottom pins like the HS-001, then on the DS Audio, which features a long, wide, mass-reducing slot in its top.

My "everything sounds like what it's made of " expectation was fulfilled. Compared to the less-expensive Jelco, which is made of magnesium, DS Audio's duralumin headshell sharpened focus and improved transparency. It also made the sound stiffer and harder and the timing tighter. Now don't be rolling your eyes: Headshell resonance is real and can be measured. For fun, check out Korf Audio's tonearm and headshell designer Alex Korf 's measurements of the Jelco HS-25 (footnote 6).

What I know for sure is that every time I tightened the collet on my Sorane tonearm, I could feel the HS-001's triangular-sectioned brass lock washer compress. The resultant compressed joint felt tight and high in surface area.

Whenever I attach a headshell, I grip the tightened tonearm collet in my left hand and try to counter-rotate the headshell with my right hand. I do this to check that azimuth is locked in securely. When I tried that with the HS-001, the connection felt more squared-up and full-contact than it did with any of my headshells that use a rubber washer.

MoFi StudioSilver MC ($999)
MoFi offers five phono cartridges: three moving magnets and two moving coils. The $999 StudioSilver moving coil I'm reviewing here sits just below their $1495 UltraGold MC (footnote 7). Both cartridges are made in Japan. The UltraGold features a Shibata stylus on a boron cantilever. The StudioSilver employs a boron cantilever with a "Nude MicroLinear" tip. The Silver makes 0.35mV from 12 ohm coils wound with Ohno Continuous Casting copper wire moving in the field of a neodymium magnet and a Permendur (footnote 8) yoke. The StudioSilver's 7.2gm body is made of aluminum and has threaded inserts and a sharp look that feels timeless, neither fancy nor unfancy. MoFi recommends a load of less than 100 ohms. I started my listening at 100 ohms.

Playing Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op.4, by Arnold Schönberg (Vox Turnabout LP TV 34263S), induced minutes-long bouts of lucid dreaming. Staying locked on and inside this complex recording came surprisingly easy with the StudioSilver. It effortlessly depicted enormous wavefronts of massed strings with purring-cat textures and supple, billowing forms. These harmonically charged wavefronts are the main show in Verklärte Nacht, and MoFi's StudioSilver made them big and serious and overtly physical.

These massed strings sounded raw because of the recording's strict clarity but also sensuous and accurately rendered. Schönberg's brightest, hardest string-orchestra harmonics came out sounding just right—not soft, or dulled, or brightened, or exaggerated. Just radiant and well-sorted. Not an easy task.

Get ready: I'm sure it's corny, but I love it. Every time I put on Rare Earth's 1969 album Get Ready (Motown LP RS 507), I freeze and sit motionless until the 21:30 minute "Get Ready" side is finished. Then I laugh, oh, gee, drummer Pete Rivera must have mixed the album because his loud metronomic snare-smashing dominates the singers and the rest of the band. Then I laugh.

My Get Ready disc was a gift from Cyrille (who owned several copies) when I visited his French Farm; see the October Gramophone Dreams. Through his large Onken horns, "Get Ready" sounded large, super-present, and hyper-vivid. Through my small Falcons, Rivera's snare-smashing sounded more or less annoying, depending on which cartridge I was using. Noticing that, I turned "Get Ready" into a new test track. My copy of this disc has long scratches and a haze you can see from across the room. Incredibly, MoFi's StudioSilver played this record with something approaching complete silence. This seemed irrational and took me completely aback. But damn, the Silver played this quiet on all my used records. Quiet like this makes me think MoFi's MC has its mechanical resonances under control. Also, the StudioSilver's "MicroLinear" stylus never seemed to dredge up any dust balls. I don't know why. What I do know is this dust-and scratch-free quietness made each instrument on the title track stand out in clearly outlined bas-relief, very distinct, very 3-D. That made me wonder what would happen if I switched the load to 500 ohms.

At 500 ohms, those 3-D instruments moved forward, flattened out some, and made the fake crowd soundtrack sound more fake. The snare became annoying again. But 500 ohms kicked up the energy and enjoyment factors. At 500 ohms, the Silver presented this "anthem" in a mesmerizing, love-to-love-you-here-I-come fashion. It did this in big-stage rock-opera style. MoFi's StudioSilver played this disc with eye-popping clarity and show-off-your-system swagger.

With either load, MoFi's new StudioSilver moving coil's excitements could be mistaken for those of a cartridge costing several times its asking price. A high-value pickup that's easy to recommend.

Collecting cartridges
I have discovered no greater audiophile pleasure than collecting records, treating turntables like project cars, and trying out as many cartridges as possible. Lately, my friends who can are restoring their estate-sale turntables and firing up old phono cartridges they've accumulated over time. They're doing this for fun and curiosity and to tune their tastes to a broader spectrum of excitement.

Just this month, I've received invites from friends to hear the Fairchild 225-A (a high-output moving coil cartridge designed and built by Joe Grado in 1951; footnote 9), a low-mileage Koetsu Black from 1980, a 1977 Koetsu Rosewood, and an ancient Nagaoka ribbon cartridge called the Jeweltone. Even little tastes of these antique cartridges grow my understanding and help me understand what type of sound suits my temperament. The most fun part is seeing how the sound of today's cartridges compares to that of their forebears.

I heard that rare Fairchild MC at Alex Halberstadt's loft in Red Hook, where, after fresh shrimp, homemade pasta, and some amber-toned wine, he played 1950s Rudy Van Gelder recordings through the most tone-truthful phono pickup I'd ever heard.

After a few mind-expanding sides, Alex asked what I thought of the Fairchild. My response was "Everything is perfect."

In retrospect, everything might have been better than perfect. That Fairchild MC playing Van Gelder's famous close-miked jazz pushed Alex's Klipsch La Scalas to a level of truth-telling I thought I'd never hear in a domestic setting. Pianos sounded really real, as if I was playing them. Drums sounded properly sized and almost live, as did Hank, Frank, and the Louvin Brothers.

I asked Alex what he was noticing, and he said, "Everything is just right there."

Listening with Alex, I thought the Fairchild 225-A sounded more real than my long-gone but never-to-be-forgotten Miyabi Mono, which, along with its stereo sister the Miyabi 47, I've regarded as the most natural sounding cartridges I've ever tried. Both Miyabi cartridges were created by Japanese master Haruo Takeda. Art Dudley reviewed the Mono in Listening #72 and Listening #114 and the 47 in his review of the EAR 324 phono preamp.

Collecting and restoring vintage phonograph cartridges, long a sideline of turntable connoiseurs, is starting to trend in mainstream audiophile circles. I mean, what's cooler than a squad of phono cartridges attached to sculpted headshells—looking like Easter Island heads—lined up on your coffee table? Or multiple turntables with tonearms sticking out in every direction? Folks, these phonographic objets d'art are high-level eye candy, meticulously crafted works of industrial design that give their owners pride and pleasure and rare personal excitement.

Best of all, cartridge collecting is a hobby that can be enjoyed on even modest budgets. Some of the coolest, most outrageous old cartridges cost less than $100 on eBay (footnote 10).

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Footnote 5: DS Audio, 4-50-40, Kamitsuruma-Honcho, Minami-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-0318, Japan. Tel: (81) 427-47-0900. Web: ds-audio-w.biz. US distributor: Musical Surroundings, Inc., 5662 Shattuck Ave., Oakland, CA 94609. Tel: (510) 547-5006. Web: musicalsurroundings.com.

Footnote 6: See korfaudio.com/blog53.

Footnote 7: MoFi Electronics, 713 W. Ellsworth Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48108-3322 Web: mofielectronics.com.

Footnote 8: Permendur is a soft, ferromagnetic alloy of iron and cobalt.

Footnote 9: By the time you read this, fellow Stereophile scribe Alex Halberstadt will have already told you about his adventures with the abovementioned Fairchild 225-A, which could reasonably be considered the first audiophile-grade cartridge in America.

Footnote 10: See ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=vintage+phono+cartridge s&rt=nc&_udhi=60.