I mounted the new Jubilee last night. I did not have much time to listen it and all that I heard was just a half side of a record that I know well. The Jubilee was at 2.3g, no enforced VTA, loaded to 75R, the 3012 arm with default shell: I have no idea what it needs and will play with all of the things later on.  It was interesting how that “fist kiss” goes as regardless of the perspective optimizations and been not broken-in I feel that the most important points shell be indicative right the way.

It was indicative. My fist feeling was kind of very positive surprise as Jubilee dose not sound like my Ortofone SPU – the Jubilee appears to be more “high-tech” cartridge then SPU Classic. That is good sign and it is what I would like to capitalize upon. I do not know if it goes into the “high-tech” domain as deep as Shelter 901 – for that I need to know Jubilee more intimate…

The Jubilee is not stale sounding cartridge; it is what I was afraid after Kouetsu. In fact the Jubilee looks like VERY bubbly and very animated, a bit more animated then I would like, even up to the point of tear apart the imaging.  However, it is a too new v and I am too ignorant in the needle’s needs to judge the cartridge more seriously from this perspective.

Where however I was instantaneously and immensely pleased was the Jubilee’s color palette – that was extremely nice. It is tremendously rich and VERY saturated but it looks like it have no color schema of SPU cartages. The SPU palettes more brownish, more decadent and more self-indulgent. Kind of colors for sake of peruse of color nobility. It is like SPU grand to anything color royalty even to peasants. The colors are royal but they subdued and more disciplined. The Jubilee colors sound like a teenager-impressionist – wild and untamed. It does not look that it have and color preferences, at least now - I am sure I will discover later. Shelter did have that same ability to identify colors with no discrimination but Shelter’s colors were very different. If SPU’s colors all diluted with some light brown water then the Shelter’s colors are Shelter with white.  The Jubilee colors are way more interesting then ether SPU or Shelter…

I was spinning records with my new Jubilee. Playing with setting here and there… The Jubilee it looks like not too fuzzy. The 2.2-2.3g of VTF, the VTA is slightly back and the Jubilee it is not too picky like other cartridges.  It used with a regular 3012’s shell, I did not load the shell as I did with Shelter - it does not help Jubilee; in fact the shell’s mass loading makes the things worse: adds hollowness to bass.

The long needle tip is very cool – the dust goes not glue itself to the “corners” as the corners are too high the point of the contact surface. If dust does attach itself then it is very easy to clean it by simple dipping or blowing – the curve what the dust sticks are too far. The surface noise is not as quiet as I seen with another needles. The records of good quality surface play fine but the records with slightly worn surface do not hide noise with Jubilee – in fact Jubilee is quite distinctively says that the records have not perfect grooves.  So, I would call Jubilee as a noise highlighting cartridge. (BTW, there is one subject regarding it that I need to look further as it is possible that I made it myself.)

The difference between the first and consequential pressing is very highly discriminated. The difference between the pressing houses is much highlighted as well. I did not detect any long trim preferences or attitude in the needle – very positive sign and very few cartridges had it. (Shelter 901 for instance)

Dynamically Jubilee very good, no misfortune here. In fact the dynamics I would say just phenomenal but I bite my tang as the last month with Shelter the dynamic was the subject of my paranoia. Anyhow, I have no criticism about the Jubilee’s dynamic – it is beyond any criticism.

The absolutely greatest things about Jubilee is the way in which this cartridge lights up sounds with zillions macroscopic colorful light-bulbs of something that I call - the tonal staccatissimo. The Jubilee colors are very “creative”, saturated, with extremely wide margin of shads and grades and the colors applied very correctly.  Jubilee does not go overboard with color discrimination and grand it only what is it called upon. When it necessary Jubilee is throwing the colors, in fact the “tonal dressing up” in beginning calls attention upon itself. But it I very easy to get accustom to the good things. What is great that that the “tonal dressing” is strong but discriminating: when I play some color-wise crappy music, like Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony for instance, then Jubilee does not do any tonal dressing kinks. Only for this quality I feel the Jubilee need to be respected.

The HF on this needle is very clean – there is no SPU’s syrupy crap. Clean, contrasty and delicate. Not overly showy and not overly glitzy. I think the cartridge need to age further to draw more finalized HF concussions. I would say that the transition to upper MF is nothing short of phenomenal – absolutely indiscernible and with good orchestra the evolution of string into woodwinds is very convincing. The mid range is fine though I fell that behind the tonal beautiful there is some room for more MF articulation. It is not smog – it is positively-bubbly but with the necessary fragility and subtlety.  Perhaps it needs to play more, I do not know… The MF’s delicate come for whatever reason at high or low dynamic ranges – in dynamic extremes Jubilee behaves very nicely. Otherwise Jubilee does not have that MF super-verbalization; at least so far it does not have (15-20 hours on the needle)

Were Jubilee doe have a stunning delicate is when the tone roles from lover MF into upper bass.  Jubilee is doing it very genital and very beautiful. The mid bass and lower bass are fine, the lower bass is another subject. It is there and it is goo but I would like to have more. It is not that it is deficient but… put in this way if it has more than my playback will be able to use it. I need to look further into the lower bass. The Jubilee has something that I call “musical bass” – it is good itself but I need more technical, the bass ++ , all the way down in depth and weight. My playback knows how to make from this “technical” bass the right musical bass. The Jubilee so far does not offer this extra material to work with, the Shelter 901 did it. The Jubilee’s bass is in nearly-sufficient side, but I would like to have much more….

The imaging is totally different story and it all over the map now and I generally do not like it. It has very different then Shelter presentation but it is not to stable to talk about it with certainly. Let see what will be with imaging in 50 hours…

Anyhow, so far the Jubilee is fun. It does not look like a “dream” cartridge but it has own very pleasant moments. I hope in a few dozen hours it will render itself into a more or less stable performance – it will be interesting to see what it will be…

The cat

Paul, I am sorry, be are you know in better word as Sarah Palin?

What anti-skating has to do with anything? What does it mean that “MC 3000II takes LOTS of anti-skate” or that one cartridge took more anti-skate than some other cartridges? The anti-skating is not a metaphysical hypothetical force that exists out awareness. Anti-skating is a fixed and well-defined characteristic of cartridge operation and it is imposable to have that one cartridge take more anti-skate than some other cartridges. A cartridge take as much anti-skate as it design and the design of arm allow, no more, no less. It also has absolutely no relation with “decent imaging”…

Anyhow, this is not the thread about anti-skating but I thought to make a comment as what you said sounds too bogus to me and at this site only I have a rights to express silliness....

Thought I'd share my experience, FWIW.

If you think anti-skating requirement is always the same for every cartridge, then do it how you always do it.

Likewise, if you find no relationship between tracking/tracing and imaging, bless you.

For my part, I have found that the optimum amount amount of anti-skate force has varied among the cartridges I have used, and the heavy-tracking, way sharp, extra-long line MC 3000 II happens to take considerably more than any other cartridge I've used.

Best regards,
Paul S

Paul S wrote:

If you think anti-skating requirement is always the same for every cartridge, then do it how you always do it. Likewise, if you find no relationship between tracking/tracing and imaging, bless you.

It is not what I said. The anti-skating force is different for each cartridge’s VTF, for each arm shape and for each set of other parameters. The anti-skating is a fixed parameter for a given configuration and it is absolutely worthless to talk about anti-skating in context of cartridges comparing. If to pick deeper then different compliance cartridges express different tolerance for the anti-skating imperfection but it has no practical meaning as the anti-skating in typical arms is perfectly set only for a single point on the record, not for a whole record. The relationship between anti-skating (I have no idea what tracking/tracing has to do with it) and imaging is totally out my understating. Thanks for the blessing.

Anyhow, I have no intention to talk about anti-skating anymore in context of this thread.

Romy the Cat wrote:

The mid bass and lower bass are fine, the lower bass is another subject. It is there and it is goo but I would like to have more. It is not that it is deficient but… put in this way if it has more than my playback will be able to use it. I need to look further into the lower bass. The Jubilee has something that I call “musical bass” – it is good itself but I need more technical, the bass ++ , all the way down in depth and weight. My playback knows how to make from this “technical” bass the right musical bass. The Jubilee so far does not offer this extra material to work with, the Shelter 901 did it. The Jubilee’s bass is in nearly-sufficient side, but I would like to have much more….

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.

This new “Rev B” Ortofone Jubilee surprised me with it amassing agreeability

I have a nasty habit to emphasize in my listening attention the things that I do not appreciate.  I might listen something, would it be amp, or speaker, or live event, or whoever and to discover a thing that I do not like. Other people acknowledge it and move in their listing attention. My stupid mine works in ugly way: if I discover it once then I begin to hyper-sensitively recognize the very same problem each next time I listed the same thing. Sure, like anyone else I do mental compromises and agree to embraces the various aspects of “non-perfection” but in my listening practice the understood sonic bugs bother me look like much more then they bother other people with whom I shared those thoughts.

I know well all “issues” of my entire playback and the “issues” of my individual components. The stranger to me is that the longer I am experiencing my new Ortofone Jubilee (as I call it jokingly “Rev B”) the more I surprised that this cartridge does not piss me off. The Jubilee is so “roundly good” and so well balanced that if give a sense of complete immunity to criticism, at list my criticism. It does not strike me as out of ordinary performer in any assessable dimension but at the same time it does not give any room for criticism ether. It is very infrequently seen behavior in audio when the bitching about NOTHING might be applied. At I have seen it only twice (and both time with analog!!!) – first time with SME 3012 tonearm and the second time with Expressive Technology ET2 transformer. The Jubilee looks like strike me in the very same league – I, being me, would like to complain about something but the actual performance does not give me the justifications to do so. Ok, not I ma, thanks god, pissed!

Romy the Cat wrote:

I have a nasty habit to emphasize in my listening attention the things that I do not appreciate

Would it be possible for you to post some samples? 

With kindest regards,

LBJ...With a little help from Giacomo Puccini

drdna wrote:

I am actually very surprised to hear you say this. I have stated before my thoughts on a preference in listening for additive or subtractive errors, based on how different people's brains process the information.

Adrian, I well understand that there are the sounds and there is Sound. I reported what it is and I do not see anything surprising or conflicting in what I said. It might be an interesting and separated subject itself – our adhesiveness to negative thing we recognize in our listing practice. Anyhow, I am not proposing myself in a role of Hans Christian Andersen’s  story about the The Princess and the Pea but I feel that there are Removable Peas, or at least the Peas with which it is possible to deal with in audio….

Lbjefferies7 wrote:

Would it be possible for you to post some samples? With kindest regards, LBJ...With a little help from Giacomo Puccini

What so you mean” to post samples”?  Do you mean to post WAV files that might be indicative to the sound of Ortofone Jubilee. This is a complicated subject. Farmer when he went into his Australian TT craze spread CDs that according to him demonstrated “good sound from the new TT”. I always felt that the idea was completely idiotic and demonstrated absolutely nothing. Well, the bigger question would be: is it possible to have a methodology that would show off the difference between the cartridges and make this different portable into some kind digital, easily portable format? I partially answered this question by posting the image my interpretation of the Albert Memorial’s bas-relief above. How about a CD with a few optimumly- performing cartridges playing the same record under identically-dependant conditions? Perhaps it would be useful but here is the catch – I do not need it. If I was a dealer who care many needles and I need to convince somebody what to buy then I would do it and invest some time and efforts into a development of some kind of “Remote Cartridges Assessment”. I y case I need no one to convince beside myself, so my scope is very limited.  If you are considering buying Otophone Jubilee then I might record some files with Jubilee and SPU playing the same material but the question that I would ask somebody if it was done for me: how do I know that each cartridge in the recording is identically optimumly- performing? So, it is not so simple to convince others if you respect the mater of the subject and the essence of idea.

Romy wrote (in blue)
Do you mean to post WAV files that might be indicative to the sound of Ortofone Jubilee.
Yes.

Farmer when he went into his Australian TT craze spread CDs that according to him demonstrated “good sound from the new TT”.
Well, if an accredited professional audio reviewer does it,   No, just kidding.  Using a digital sample like he did is just foolishness.  It is Mike afterall, what can we expect?

...posting the image my interpretation of the Albert Memorial’s bas-relief above.
Yes!  I thought that was an excelent visualization, but I was interested in more specific aspects of the Jubilee's color.  You said above...

...it is very “agreeable” and it is spectacularly colorful – colorful but in very smart way
"Colorful in a very smart way" is something I have been thinking about and has risen many questions.  The way my system handles dynamics is quite important to me and I am fairly satisfyed with it's "smartness" in this aspect.  I can imagine ways many ways that color can be used smartly and I thought that a WAV may prove to be educational.  Of course, it may not as well. 

If you are considering buying Otophone Jubilee then I might record some files with Jubilee and SPU playing the same material but the question that I would ask somebody if it was done for me: how do I know that each cartridge in the recording is identically optimumly- performing?
No, I am not buying one and I am not interested in comparison tests.  With Warren Buffett being one of Obama's new cronies, I am focusing all funds on Berkshire-Hathaway stock.  I got some Halliburton stock when the Iraq war started in 2003...It did just fine.  My interests in the Jubilee have nothing to do with equipment, but rather with Sound.  Color is something my system is lacking (though the blacks, greys, and whites keep me fairly amazed, especially in "spacious" recordings) so I would like to educate myself.  Any advice you would offer would be cheerfully appreciated.  If you don't think samples would help or would just be a pain in the ass, don't worry about it.

I would like to ask a question.  Does the Jubilee add a specific color signature, or does it change appropriately with the music it plays?  What does it do when you play Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto?
Cheers,
LBJ

Lbjefferies7 wrote:

I would like to ask a question. Does the Jubilee add a specific color signature, or does it change appropriately with the music it plays?

Romy the Cat wrote:

This is very interring subject for me to think about. I even mounted 901 on another arm of mine as I would like to explore this topic more. Even though Jubilee is not broken-in yet but it is clearly that it has “less bass”, that last sensational “space crash” is not there. However, the Jubilee has “softer” bass and I mean the word “softer” in very positive connotation. It is not even “softness” but rather some kind of very fluent connectivity between space and LF notes where bass does not conflict with space but rather an organic part of the space. I have to agree that it is very natural and very present and it is quite different from what accustomed to recognize as “good bass”. I still would like to have juts beyond of that Jubilee’s non-contradictory bass the ability of the cartridge to open the door to the “other side of sub-word”, to the world of the sub-harmonics, that enable the whole system to play orgasmaticly slow and pleasurably bright. The Jubilee kind of not doing there but it on other side offers an interesting alternative of “different view on the bass”. I need to love with this for a while and to think about it. It very much might work…