Almost Time to Replace My DV-20xl

Just one last word about proper set up. My dealer came to house twice. We tried 3 of standard alignment preferences with no luck. He's been in the business for 30 years, (owns top Basis TT FWIW)
The moral I humbly offer is that perhaps one should start at the (quality ) bottom in order to witness the presence of good all around *fundamental* performance (what some people call "forgiving"sound), and thus demand said fundamentals in mega $$ cart/arm/TT when finally pining for more rarified "sparkle, " "sweet mids" etc. It also allows for more time to get familiar with a wider variety of records before auditioning the more expense stuff.

Oh me.
Not to offend anyone involved, but, not all dealers are experts at setup, whether they've been doing it for 1 or 30.

Your last sentence is fine for you- but not for a lot of us.
Like saying you should start off with a yugo till you've driven for years.
I wish I had had better gear when I had first started, and like I keep repeating, the Original Poster is way beyond that.

Life is too short to drink cheap beer--same goes for hifi!
Now I'm done....

Hmmm..a Yugo? A preferable metaphor: one may also start off buying a beautiful expensive house...built upon sand.

ah, I see...the ol "build your house upon a rock, and you will be a beacon of light to many"....I'd say ask for a better architect/engineer!

also, it seems, like in much of life, ignorance is bliss...

Both of you are right -

- I had the jmw9sig and experienced poor tracking from a variety of cartridges. After countless setups (various dealers, myself w/ Mint tractor and VPI themselves) I finally learned that if after a couple of setup attempts mistracking does not go away, then there is a problem with the arm, cartridge or their relationship. In my case (and many others if you search the forums) I found out that the JMW9 is prone to mistracking, and my personal opinion is that it's to be avoided. After trying various high $$$ cartridges, I too ended up with an Audio Technica (AT33PTG) which finally minimized (but did not eliminate) the distortion.

- With that said, yes, there are better sounding cartridges that AT.

The OP does not have the JMW arm, he has the Dynavector arm which I haven't heard but looks to be a very good arm.

So - yes, he will need to make sure whatever cartridge he chooses does not have distortion, but with this arm, I doubt he will have that problem.

To the original question - sorry I can't help as I haven't heard them, but I'd say go for the XV1S if you can afford it. Otherwise, you'll just be wishing that you had!

For a bit less money, the Lyra Kleos and Delos are supposed to be really good for the price. Haven't heard those yet either, but I would like to!