Hello Steve,
Within the last 6 months, I have sampled two very nice Cartridges on my own VPI HW-19 Table. Those being the Benz Ruby 3, and the ZYX Airy 3X SB.
Both Low Output Cartridges, being .34mv for the Benz Ruby 3, and .24mv for the ZYX Airy 3. The Airy 3, and other ZYX Cartridges are tested differently, I believe JVC versus CBS, so therefore I had found the lower rated output ZYX Airy 3 actually comes very close in output to the Benz Ruby 3.
On my Sutherland PhD, a setting of 60db Gain was suiatble for either Cartridge. I did eventually settle on 62db with the Airy 3, thus using the lowest setting on the high gain boards.
Both are very nice Cartridges, the Ruby sounding horrible upon fire-up, but after a bit of VTA-VTF tweaking-adjustment, and 5-7 hours of play began to settle down, and started to strut its stuff. Nice pure sonics, smooth, nice smooth, pure mids, relatively quiet in regards to groove noise, and everytime I played it thereafter, it continued to improve.
Still somehow, I wanted more of everything (don't we all), and for quite some time chatted with Doug Deacon about the ZYX, as Doug is a huge proponent of the ZYX.
It took me about a month to eventually decide, and then gave Mehran of Sorasound a call, and on its way, was my new Airy 3X. Two days later, the Fed-Ex Man dropped it off.
After overcoming insitial fear, as we all do, with a very expensive Cartridge, mounting, just like the Ruby was relatively easy. Only insitial worry, was that the ZYX did not have color coded pins on its rear, but thankfully the Owner's manual shows proper channel, and ground pin identification.
I believe all ZYX Cartridges, with perhaps the exception of the least expensive Bloom (I'm not positive of this though) come with permanently mounted Mounting Nuts, making installation a simple affair.
The Cartridge sounded very good direct from the box, and there are of course differences with the ZYX House sound. One of the most notable, is that I was playing some "decent" older LPs in my collection, (which I usually do when initially setting up a new Cartridge) and noting "where the heck the the groove noise, loud crackles, and pops go?!"
The ZYX Airy 3 substantially was an improvement in this uncanny groove silence it possessed, versus the Benz Ruby 3 (even though the Benz was no slouch in this area)
With the ZYX, instruments-voices seemed to have better individuality, seperation, and depth of soundstage versus the Ruby. Seemed that at first, certain areas of the sound spectrum like drums, bongoes, etc were a bit more forward-defined, jumping out at you, and after 4-5 hours of play, and some more fine tuning-tweaking of VTA-VTF, the Cartridge seemed to display better evenness, integration, and a completeness of sound, and balance. This still continues to improve at present.
Before I moved onto better, more treasured LPs, I wanted to make sure, that I had no gross errors in adjustment-alignment before risking any damage to said cherished LPs. Once my fears were buried, that all was well with Alignment, VTA, VTF, it was then onto the heavy artillery.
With my premo LPs, I noticed an absolute dead silence, in that for the first time with analog playback, I swore I was listening to CD, in regards to no background noise, no hum, no pops, no clicks, nothing!
No doubt the sonic qualities of the Battery Powered Sutherland PhD, which is also noted for being dead silent, were finally being better showcased with these similar qualities of the ZYX.
Only downside I noted with the Airy 3, was a raspness-rawness of sibilance, in that the Cartridge seemed almost like it was a mistracking fault. Doug had stated firstly, this improves with break-in, and in a worst case scenario, could be a possible shortcoming with my AQ Uni-pivot Tonearm. I note this seems to have improved, but is not yet fully gone.
I recently installed a Riggle VTAF on Tonearm, and sonics again seem to have taken another leap for the better. Bass seemed to be tighter, punchier after the addition of VTAF, and again some more very slight VTA Adjustments. This Cartridge is far from being fully broken in, so any negative comments are more than likely not flaws of the Cartridge, but perhaps lack of break in time of Airy 3.
If I was to buy used, and decided on a ZYX, I would contact Mehran of Sorasound. He occasionally gets low hour used Cartridges in, from customers who want to trade up to the TOTL.
In this scenario, you would most likely be protected with some length of dealer-distributor warrantee. When buying used from a private seller, you are essentially on your own without a pot to pee in, or a window to throw it out of. Mark
