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I was playing with Jubilee and kind of turn to like. It is might not be the best needle that fulfill all aspects of my sick imagination but it is very-very good cartridge that I have not too much compliance. In fact there is a certain growth on what   Jubilee does and I kind of fell that I got under Jubilee spell. It is very nicely balanced, it is very “agreeable” and it is spectacularly colorful – colorful but in very smart way, not like SPU. 

Do you think that it is it? Well, not really                .

A few weeks back, right after posting the following post:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=8427

. ..I contacted Otophone distributor and asked about the “Compliance Noise”.  He did not strike me as a person who has a great deal experience with playback. I said that he never heard about the effect but he was very nicely stating behind his product and he proposed to send him the cartridge back for replacement as “he did not like what I report and it shell not be this way”. Well, I found it very commendable. I send my Jubilee back and he sent me another one. The New Jubilee turn out to have the absolutely same “Compliance Noise”, I presume that the sustention material that Otophone use is contaminated with run-away magnetic domens. Well, at least no one gave me a better explanation and I, following follow the Occam's razor principle, will blame the “contaminated Otophone materials as the guilty party. Sure I will not be able to make Otophone to acknowledge and it is not my objectives since the practical effect from the “Compliance Noise” is minuscule.

So, what I am talking about? Well, I am talking about the very surprising fact that the second Otophone Jubilee that I got as a replacement torn out to be better than the first one sonically.  I was very much surprised as I presumed that the needle of this lever and coming not from a basement-bases sweat shop but from a big manufacture shell be more of less stable in quietly. It turned out to be not. The new Jubilee has much (much!) less surface noise and might read wider variety of records with less noise – something that disappointed and surprised me with my first Jubilee. Also, the new Jubilee has much better bass – a bug and very welcoming discovery. I was playing with VTA and VTF thinking that it might be some minute change in setting. The less noise and more bass then before looks like feels at ANY setting. Also I do feel that the new Jubilee even more dynamic then the one before.

I was looking at all of it and figure: I might continue to harass the Otophone people with their “Compliance Noise” but I am most certainly not willing to let my last Jubilee out of my home.  So, considering the cons and pros I decided to closed the book on my Otophone discovery and leave everything as is. The new Jubilee behaves juts wonderfully, purely like dream. I hope sometimes Otophone have another not-deaf and paying attention customer who would help to Otophone to find the sources of the “Compliance Noise”. Well, bitching about Otophone I sell not forget to mention my recent discovery: at my 3 reference arms (Stereo arm, Mono arm and Romantic Stereo arm) nowadays sit 3 Otophone cartridges…. Thanks, Otophone.

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