Chris, I've tried CV4004s which I found good but nowhere near as special as their reputation suggests. I would rate them in my 'top 5', though. I've not heard M8137s - how do they compare to CV4004s in your experience?


Actually Marco, I stuffed up a bit with my last post & mislead you rather badly!
Where I wrote M8137, I should have put CV4004, and vice versa, sorry!

I found the CV's to be very good indeed, but the M8137's seem to be superior in every way, except perhaps microphony, though certainly not in the noise department. I only use them in the phono stage & prefer JAN 5751's in the line stage. I tried the 5751's in an attempt to take advantage of the extra gain available, but could detect no real difference there. However the mixture of the two types seemed to gel particularly well.

As we've both concluded several times on different subjects: It all depends, doesn't it?

Cheers