Have about 27 hours on the new stylus now, so almost broken in, and things are sounding mighty fine. Surface noise is getting less and less and detail and clarity are getting more and more. The great thing is it's making my average vinyl copies sound fantastic, a huge plus. Exile on Main Street has loads of detail, not something the album is known for. Vocals are smooth and midrange lush, with electric guitars sounding delicious. My Sticky Fingers also sounds very nice, where I remember before the surface noise bothered me, now not so much. Drums and percussion sound very convincing, and a deep round driving bass. These two albums are two of my favorites, the Stones at their very peak. And with another favorite, Dark Side by Floyd, I could easily tell the difference between pressings, and found the 30th Anniversary copy to have much more detail than an old Harvest pressing, which sounded okay but not the best.
I measured the RPM using my phone and found the Michell Gyro SE was running a tad slow at 32.7. I had to open the stock PSU up, just needed to remove 4 screws, and then the speed control trimpot is readily available and easy to adjust. Got it to 33.4 rpm, a touch fast to account for stylus drag. Wow and flutter I got 0.17%, not bad for a belt drive where Michell recently have been having trouble sourcing decent belts, so they started manufacturing them in house. Maybe I can look into getting a newer belt straight from Michell. It's not terribly steady though, but passable, and it passed my piano realism and weight test, which I'm pretty picky about. One of my best records, Bill Evans - Waltz for Debby, sounds incredible now, very lifelike. The interaction between such easily separated instruments is beguiling, with incredibly realistic drums and bass that possessed a texture you could reach out and touch. Transports you right into a NY jazz club of the '60's.
A user on another site expressed concern that my cart and arm were horribly mismatched. I looked it up on Vinyl Engine's resonance calculator, using 14 cu for compliance at 10 Hz, and an effective mass for the arm of 12.5g (the listed mass on Michell's website for the Tecnoarm 2). And using a cartridge mass plus mounting hardware of 10g, I was squarely in the green with a resonant frequency of 9 Hz. He said that calculator was wrong, that I needed a decent test record to really know. I might need a test record but I have a hard time believing the calculator is wrong. He suggested I switch cartridges to a Lyra or Dynavector. Or try the Koetsu with an SME 3009. Negative on either of those options, I'm pretty much married to my setup at this point, and not enough funds to upgrade the tonearm and get the necessary armboard. Definitely not enough funds to get the Lyra I really want.
I'm very happy with the sound I'm getting and have felt no need to listen to any other source, including my hot-rodded Rega P3. Also much more involving than my DAP, the Surfans F20, which has a nice TI Burr Brown DAC. I tried my DSD copy of Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic and it just wasn't cutting it. Not as much presence, not as alive, not as enjoyable. My vinyl copy in excellent condition that I got for a quarter at a thrift shop was sounding wonderful and trouncing the digital. I'm happy with the service I got from VAS, would do it again despite the long wait and it not being all that cheap.