Zyx R1000 Airy3 vs Universe

We actually were doing a tonearm shootout. We had multiple copper coil UNIverse cartridges and two tables that could accomodate two arms. The only two cartridges we compared were a Lyra Olympos and the UNIverse on identical arms. At least that's how I remember it.

Speaking directly to your question however I think Doug Deacon is the only poster here that has done what you are asking about under controlled circumstances.

Any opinion I may have may not be worth a lot if closely scrutinized because I have a lesser table and arm and own an Airy 3 S SB. I also don't possess an audiophile vocabulary worthy of such a detailed comparrison. I would be basing my opinion using audio memory rather than anything that approaches controlled comparrison. I trust my memory but understand others that would not.

Doug, where are you?

Here are the direct comparisons of these cartridges that I'm aware of:

1. On our Teres 265 and/or 320 + TriPlanar VII:
- Airy 2, copper coils, silver weight
- Airy 3, copper coils, silver weight
- UNIverse, copper coils, silver weight
- UNIverse, silver coils, silver weight
- UNIverse, gold coils, silver weight

Compared by: myself, Paul and two experienced audio friends. One of them owns more stepups than Raul owns cartridges, plus multiple cartridges and several good arms, including a Schroeder and a TriPlanar. The other is the fellow who built our custom amp and will be building our custom preamp. He runs a Verdier/Schroeder/Onyx Platinum. I believe they would both concur with what I wrote above. One of them bought a UNIverse a few weeks after visiting us, even though his stated reason for the visit was to find some reason NOT to buy one. ;-) The other guy would buy one, but he has two young kids to pay for.

2. On Cello's Teres 340 + Graham 2.2
- Airy 2, copper coils, silver weight
- Airy 3, copper coils, silver weight
- UNIverse, copper coils, silver weight
- UNIverse, silver coils, silver weight

Compared by: Cello, an experienced friend of his, Paul and myself (except Paul and I didn't hear the silver coil UNIverse in his system, only in ours). In Cello's system the Airy 2 was slightly preferable to the Airy 3, as discussed in the review. There was no debate about the UNIverse however. Cello called Mehran and ordered one while we were sitting there.

Well Doug,Hopefully,if the friggin' hurricane does not hit south Florida,I'll be more versed in the supposed "magic" of the Univ.,and from what I hear(though I've no doubt,you know this already,assuming your audio grapevine is "yenta'd up",like mine)a Schroeder Ref,how the heck do you actually spell Schroeder?I've seen at least three spellings already!

As far as my own LP collecting goes,I've been lucky to find a huge quantity of records,I myself was able to look over,at Princeton,before the quality stuff got really hard to find.I'm on a couple of mail lists,but have amassed a large enough collection that I'm not buying too much these days.Poor me!My pal Sid keeps me in new supply of stuff,every time he decides to get rid of his "triples".He has ALOT of these,so I'm always getting great stuff,without the dissolved foam.Ha,Ha!!Best regards,and PRAY the hurricane moves way south!!

Hi sirspeedy,
My name is spelled Schröder, but I won't hold it against you if you use a spelling that, when read, sounds close to how my name is pronounced in german... ;-)

Cheerio,

Frank

Herr Schroeder unfortunately most of us don't know how to get an umlaut on our keyboard.