Any word on the Blue Angel "Mantis"?

I have one: it is a great cart and substantially below $US5k, mine has a wood body but aluminium cantilever as the ruby was a bit much for me. It pushes all the right buttons for me: clean bass, detail without being sterile. It just sounds quite neutral to me and very musical. You can contact Andre via his web site and get a price. I don't want to give the price I paid as he said the prices were going to rise because of the global financial crisis and the fluctuations of the South African Rand, however, $US5k is not even close.

The problem with carts is that you often have to buy on reputation and trust, I have never regretted buying a Mantis, the most expensive, but far and away the best cart I've ever owned.

DS

Thanks for your feedback - I am havinf the opportunity to try & buy thanks to a generous offer from the seller. I compared the "Mantis" with my current Dynavector XX2 and heard some others at friends installations.

We have all agreed that this has been the best analog reproduction I have had in 30 years, and looks hard to beat it with similar priced options.

I have received some mails directly from a couple of "Mantis" owners that are willing to speak with me by phone and share their impressions - both sound very happy customers so far.

Regards,

I am deciding to keep it, it is by far the best cartiridge I have heard so far - it is very picky with VTA adjustments and overhang - once properly set up it sounds fantastic, very musical, honest and full of energy.

Regards,

Hi,
if I'm right, for ~ $1.700 of the snake-wood (alu cantilever) item it seems a very good cart for fair (MC) money.

Some dude offering it for $5'000, as could be seen on the web, was obviously trying to make a quick buck.

Dear Axel: +++++ " good cart for fair (MC) money. " +++++

What is a fair price? for whom? what really means fair price?

Do you think that a 50.00 cartridge that " fumigate " not only the Mantis but cartridges ( like Lawrence posted on the MM thread. ) in the 8-12K price range have a fair price?, well take a look:

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?anlgcart&1253551030&/Sumiko-Andante-P-76-New-Phono-

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.