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Re: To Grado, or not to Grado, that is the question.....

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HI there
the grado is a wonderful cartridge that can on occasion provide magic. it does provide sonic acccuracy of sorts -- especially in voice.... tonally it sounds more correct than most MC.. it is really convincing on voices & strings. however, it does not do tranisients that well. so sharp piano attacks in particular are somewhat sloppy(the helikon in contrast excels at this). also, sharp drum/tabla solos lose some rhythmic crispness. the grado is kinda like the DRT cartridge--- tonally good but a bit of plodder. i liked my grados a lot but eventually gave all up... i would suggest buying the $300 (5mv) one to start... if you like it a lot, jump to the $1200 Ref (again 5mv).. i am not a fan of the statement series... 0.5mv is too low for most phono premps and i am not sure if it does well with stepups. of course, if your phono is solid state and can handle low output directly, then the statement line becomes an option.

i dont particullarly care for the extra warmth the wood body gives
the cartridge... wish they could tone that down a bit -- but for solid-state users-- that amount of extra warmth might be just right .
grados dont track well compared to other cartridges but nontheless, in the real world, i have had no serious tracking problems with mine... also, the hum problems are a bit exagerrated... the grado did not hum in most of the many systems i have heard them in. i do think the grado wood-body is an audio-classic and music-lovers cartridge.
munna


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  • Re: To Grado, or not to Grado, that is the question..... - munna 07:29:21 08/09/05 (0)


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