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Antonio,

I would like to point out that your replied to my post about the 103M cartridge. The 103 and 103M are totally different animals , even contraction-wise. In fact it is shame that they named them as they were the similar model number. Performance wise they are very different as well: the 103 is a cheap hi-fi cartridge, sort of fundamentals pusher, nothing more. The 103M is perfectly balanced everywhere but lacks dynamics and transient response.
Yet, they both are good for money but I do not like this “benefits”. I believe that the cartridges that perform better and that cost 7-10 times more expensive are grossly overpriced. There is not big difference between “good sounding” Koetsu Onyx and “bad sounding” Denon 103. Perhaps Koetsu Onyx has $30 worth most expensive material and a different constriction. However, if this Koetsu Onyx wouldn’t be manufactured by a "kinky Japanese grandfather" in his basement, 100 pieces per year, but by the Denon’s production and distribution force then the Koetsu Onyx would cost the same $200-$300.

There is a lot of BS going on in the cartridges world. When I hear about those new $5.000-$10.000 cartridge and about the idiots-reviewers that drool over thier performance (ironically when I go into the reviewer’s listing room I hear a sound that is mostly so pathetic that $100 worth MM Grado will be more then sufficient for their systems, I am not kidding) I really got disgusted by the fact that cartridges might cost so much.
I think the price of the cartages and the paranoia that the idiotic industry creates around the cartridges is one of the most revolting things in audio. The dealers charge 50%-70% over the cartridges price without providing ANY service. You go to a dealer, pay him for instance $7K but the dealer has no idea about the cartridge, no operating analog setup in-house, no ability to facilitate your education about the purchase and even not skills to support a conversation about this dame cartridge! After all, you have to share with him an extra $4000 juts because he is your "local distributor"! How different it from any other form of extortion?

The fun part that you do not even know what you buy (show me a dealer who has home-try cartridges!). The only thing that left to you is to be influenced by the “opinions” audio crowd that is mostly highly ignorant, exceedingly agendanized and has no commonly supported neither sound reproduction evaluation methodologies nor the skills to conduct those evaluation.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

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