Tír Na HiFi

Hi folks,

I`m thinking of buying one of these soon - going by reviews only of course, such is the way for cartridges unfortunately. Does anyone here have experience with this brand? Anyone have one (new only) to sell or that I could perhaps listen to? I am considering keeping my Clearaudio Titanium for the eventual trade-in/upgrade as getting it re-tipped by a third party voids this option. I would consider selling it for €1500 but bear in mind that it has plenty of hours on it so only really worth buying if planning to upgrade to V2 or Goldfinger - this would be at least €3K again but it means that one would get a cartridge that retails at €6500 for about €4500!!!

http://www.charismaaudio.com/wp-content ... arisma.pdf

Cheers,

Dave.

Its hard to know. Its a mix of buying on chance and reviews. I think I'd need more consensus across a 2 continents on it.

I'm a fan of the benz carts, they normally offer very decent refurb options and repairs. Example - I had a benz L2 that I wore out. Sent it back to Benz, within a week I had a diagnosis and quote. I could have it totally rebuilt for €500, or buy a brand new S2 for €600 (retail on it at that time was ~€1400).

I know Hifijoe here has a benz ruby (no envy here, no siree!) and loves it.

fran

Cheers Fran. Benz etc were on the shortlist recently when trying to decide what to do. I`ve read about ten different Charisma MC1 reviews and they all seem to go along the same lines - not as warm as a Koetsu or a clinical as a Lyra, which in my mind`s ear is appealing to me. Plus, the Charisma wouldn`t require the pre to be sent back for re-loading. Shelter 501 is also a candidate but I don`t know if I could go back to elliptical styli at this point - spoilt rotten so I`ve been! That said, there is a NOS 501MkII going for €650 but again the pre is the snag there so it`s the same money either way. The quest shall continue...:-)

Went for a Denon DL301 MKII as an interim measure. €270 all in via eBay with the seller marking it a used/gift worth $50 so customs can go tiddle themselves!!!

I ot my hands on an old B&O MMC6000. She sounded a bit dull to my ears so I've sent it off for a retip..... we'll see how it goes! You might be surprised how well the denon sounds when it settles in.

I believe they take a good 100 hours to fully break in but reviews for the most part are positive. My mate is trying to offload a B&O system on me for free. Probably worth looking at as I think it has one of their moving iron carts on it which I could pilfer for a spare :-).

Cart arrived today. An evening of teeth grinding and eyeball squinting ahead :-)

If you ever want to pass on that B&O system, I wouldn't mind letting it rest in my account for a little while - just to satisfy curiosity.


Great news on the cart arrival - dead curious to see how it sounds!! i have a USB scope on order for helping with set up a bit.......

Will do Fran! Got the cart installed last night. Needs a good 50+ hours of play before I fine tune the set-up but so far it sounds pretty good. Going to hold off on any judgement for a while but it tracks really well and has quite a laid back balance (particularly in the upper-mid) which I like. Still might go for the Charisma or Grado eventually but the 301MkII seems like a killer bargain so far. I can`t understand why folks go for the 103 all the time. Very few modern arms can get the best out of it I reckon as it`s designed for heavy arms. The 301 seems quite stable in the Unify with virtually no needle-talk or igd so I`d imagine it`s a better match for medium mass arms. Happy camper here :-)

Working in Copenhagen for a couple of weeks and spotted this in the window of a rather high end gear shop. Was closed at the time but will try to get back on Saturday for a listen. They have quite a selection of exotic tt's and they may have a Charisma installed. We'll see.


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