Originally Posted by
nickbaba
No Marco you didn’t miss anything, I just haven’t had the time to sit and write up my impressions until now. But I have had time to give the DL-S1 a listen over the last week, and I have come to some conclusions. Obviously any comments I make about it are in the context of my specific system and room, and ymmv.
Just for reference, my listening system currently consists of a fairly heavily modded Technics 1210 (Jelco 750D w/ Oyaide Carbon Fibre headshell and Yannis Tome silver re-wire, Paul Hynes external PSU, Mike New bearing, Funk Firm acrylic platter, Isonoe feet, Yannis Tome Silver Litz Gaia Phono cable) into a Hashimoto HM3 SUT or Rothwell Headspace into EAR 834p, Croft 25R and AD Audio re-built Radford TT100 to RFC Tannoy Cheviots with external crossovers.
Previously I had been listening to a standard DL-103 which quite suited the music I tend to enjoy, rhythmic bass-heavy electronica, 70s dub reggae, dance music and some rock stuff. More recently that was swapped out for a Denon DL-103SA which I was also enjoying very much. More refined and detailed than a standard 103 but still retaining that spherical stylus sense of weight and heft. So when the opportunity came along to hear an S1 I was very curious how it would stack up against its two Denon fellows.
Initially I swapped it for the 103-SA in the Oyaide CF headshell through the Hashimoto HM3s. First impressions were of further detail and top end air, but was it at the expense of the bottom end? Having read the previous posts in this thread I was concerned that I would be losing bass to gain high-end detail… also, as far as I know, that’s something of a characteristic of elliptical stylii, to present plenty of detail, but with less overall heft.
However my HM3s are set-up for 1:10 which is fine for my DL-103 but probably not enough gain for the lower output S1, so I swapped over to the Rothwell Headspace, which is far more flexible in gain and load. After experimenting a bit with the dip switch settings I reached a point where things were sounding pretty sweet. Lovely full mid-range and again bags of detail and a sense of openness in the
top-end. The bass was definitely there in the mix, but was still less than I was used to from the big bouncy spherical 103… time to swap back and compare. So I wired up the standard 103 and yes, there was that big bouncy bass I was used to hearing. OK, the top end now sounded like it was being painted with a decorators brush instead of a camel’s eyelash but wait… was that really deeper bass from the vinyl I was hearing, or was it just boomy bass bloom that I had gotten used to hearing? Hmmm…
There was one easy way to tell what was maybe being added to the sound by a particular cartridge, to A/B the same track on vinyl and digital. This time I fitted the S1 to an ADC magnesium headshell I had previously been using for my Dynavector Dv20x2L. I lined up 2 versions of the same track, vinyl and digital, that I could quickly switch between on inputs 1 and 2 of the Croft pre. Digital playback was 44.1k/24bit from the Cambridge Audio 851N. Track was Steve Hauschildt’s Saccade feat. Julianna Barwick, a great mix of deep electronic bottom end and airy female vocals.
I listened to the digital version first, to get a benchmark sense of the overall mix through my system. Then I spent a couple of minutes gain-matching the vinyl/digital inputs. Once I settled down to listen, the result was immediately obvious. Once properly gain-matched, when switching between the digital file and the S1 there was no difference at all that I could hear. The S1 was simply presenting the mix as honestly and as well-balanced as a studio-master recording. It was neither adding nor taking away from the mix. What I had been missing, the big bass bounce, had in fact been being added by the 103… lots of fun, but neither honest nor accurate. What I had taken to be a leaness in the S1 sound was just the lack of extra bass boom and bloom. To be honest I was a little surprised at this finding, as I had convinced myself that the elliptical stylus was ‘thin’ sounding. but I couldn’t deny the evidence of my ears. Further listening confirmed the initial impression.
(For those perhaps wondering why my vinyl system didn’t out-perform a digital playback, but merely sounded ‘the same’, well, I’m sure there are plenty of reasons, but a large one would likely be that the source track was itself a digital studio recording, so ultimately the resolution is decided by the original sample rate and bit depth.)
Having reached that conclusion I began to regard the S1 with greater respect. For those that value honesty of audio reproduction it’s very impressive. I imagine its detail and finesse would be gorgeous on acoustic music and particularly female vocals. It’s very even-handed in its presentation across the frequency spectrum, perhaps even to the point of being a little too restrained and polite-sounding for my tastes, but that could just be down to what I’m used to. It’s a cup of freshly steeped tea-leaves served in a fine china cup and saucer rather than the 3-sugar builders tea in a chipped mug that I’m used to gulping down.
However, that’s just a question of taste. It’s obviously an excellent cartridge and easily out-plays all the other carts in my small collection. For the right music it would be hard to beat and I certainly don’t see myself spending the kind of money necessary to better it. When it comes to party-time I might well find myself swapping it out for something more down and dirty, but I’m very happy to have it and it’s not going anywhere!
Denon DL-S1 MC cartridge
Reply With Quote
