And it's mine! Installed it as soon as I got home from work - pretty easy really. The usual level of patience was required to align it, but the more you do this the less painful it gets. Also, I luuuurve threaded mounting holes! So much easier than having to use the minuscule little bolts!
Initially set tracking force to about 2g. Sound was obviously more refined and detailed than the Sumiko, but seemed a bit mid-forward, edge-of-the-seat kinda thing. Figured it just needed running in. Then I remembered this review:
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/vinyl/messages/591504.html So following his recommendation I bumped up the VTF to 2.15g and hey presto - instant gorgeous sounds! The "tenseness" was gone, and it sounded super-sweet!
After listening to a side or two from the new Basement Jaxx album (excellent music, though production is quite dense), I put it through the HFN Test Disc, expecting it to sail through. Was surprised and somewhat disappointed to find it fail at the 3rd (of 4) anti-skating tests, with the 4th "torture" track throwing it skidding across the disc! Fiddled with the anti-skate as best I could, but at 2.15g VTF it seemed to want more anti-skate than the RB250 can give..! May have to try a slightly lower VTF just to get the anti-skate right.
Also got a lot of intermodulation distortion on the resonance test tracks - and not concentrated at any frequency as far as I could tell. Seemed to start in the 20s Hz and continue intermodulating quite obviously (though to varying degrees) until about 10-12Hz..! Not the expected behaviour!
On the other hand, I've been listening to disc after disc, and sweet mother does this thing sing, test disc be damned! The real eye/ear-opener was Nitin Sahwney's 'Prophesy' on 45rpm double LP, which has some of the best production quality I've ever heard, and was brought to simply sublime levels by the Dyn.
Everything about the sound is a leap or three ahead of the Sumiko, with the most obvious quality being the refinement and resolution in the treble and mids - the Sumiko could be a tad course, whereas the Dyn is pure silk and incredibly high resolution. The sound is also very much of a whole, with nothing standing out, and no colouration that I can hear. Tonality is gorgeous (piano and guitar sound so beautiful...), atmosphere and acoustic space come through in spades, bass is super-tight, deep, clean, and punchy, treble sweet and silky without sounding rolled-off in the slightest, and the whole sound is wonderfully liquid and "flowing" (dunno how else to describe it). I just don't think I could ask for anything more in a cart!
Anyway, I've only listened to a handful of discs so far, so something may yet trip it up. I thought I noticed a bit of end-of-side distortion on one of the Nitin Sahwney sides, but it may just have been the vocal sample used (hard to tell with sampled music!) The setup may well need some tweaking. That said, I'm loathe to as it sounds so gorgeous as is! Also, I'm assuming the sound will improve further with use (can't imagine what could get better!)
In short, GBP600 is not a small amount to spend on a cart, but my goodness was it worth every penny! Will report any further developments re: break-in, setup tweaking, etc.
Dunc
I'll let y'all know how it sounds of course.
Gonna have to get it Monday... My delightful weekend of playing with the new toy down the toilet, sniff.
