Quote:
Originally Posted by BillK
Basically the Atlas excels most notably at retrieval of low frequency information (for both better and worse.)
The good of this is that there is more actual bass being extracted from my LPs than I knew was there with other cartridges I've used - not tubbyness or false bass, but natural bass in the recordings (sometimes also heard on digital copies of the same album.)
The bad is that the cartridge is better at conveying rotational-based infrasonic low frequencies to the phono stage and on to the amp so I now see my woofers making motions I've never seen them make before trying to reproduce excessively low frequencies. 
The Atlas also consistently seems to provide more separation between channels than I've heard with other cartridges.
Is it worth the huge price premium over the Kleos? It all depends on what you want to hear on your records, but I've never heard better LF information extracted from my vinyl, and given the price of the Ref 2 SE alone it makes sense to feed it the best signal that you reasonably can.
The downside of course is that if you amortize expected stylus life over the cost of the cartridge, you're paying about $9/hour to play an LP, so you'd best only play really, really good pressings. 
(For the first time in my life I understand the efficacy of having multiple tonearms affixed or readily available to swap in and out.) |
thank you, bill, for the wonderful insight.
in my universe the atlas is a little bit out of reach (before worrying about hrs usage!), so i think the kleos represents pretty good value if you don't need the last word in bottom-end reproduction. i always find value in the middle-end of high-end, in that you can get great performance for the dollar, but then from there on every incremental step is small but big $$$. i can use those extra dollars elsewhere whilst still eating.. some... cake....
