Couldn't really tell as I listened on my work laptop with Form 2 headphones plugged in - if anything number 4 sounded good but all had some distortion and a bit harsh - most likely the laptop - will try on my mac and through pentas later.

I recently tried some other makes of cartridge in a Sansui deck, the best one was a Shure M75 and the worst a brand new Rega Carbon (supposedly a great cartridge and a bargain according to what hifi) - aim was to see if it was worth paying the extra for re-tipping on my MMC20EN - conclusion I reached was definitely worth it)

Interested to know if it was a radial or parallel tracking deck used.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the feedback so far, I have made a new file that will hopefully more accurately reflect the differences in sound. The last file was first recorded to a Chrome cassette in my Beocord 9000 and then digitised. This file has been recorded directly to the computer.

I have uploaded it as a FLAC file as I understand this will sound as good as it gets.

Dropbox link-

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l6tyyizlwp04c60/Rolling%20Stones%20Cart%20Test.flac?dl=0

For non dropbox users - 

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/497158/Rolling%20Stones%20Cart%20Test.flac

I will make a Classical one Sonavor but I'm not sure I have those LPs. I will however find something that I'm sure you will be familiar with.

Andrew the deck is a linear tracking BG8000. The recording is the last track on the LP in both instances. 

Thanks again!

Lee

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I like this latest sampling better but it hasn't made it any easier to distinguish the difference between samples. With this set of samples I still lean towards Track 3 as the one I prefer. The other tracks sound good too although Track 2 has a weird spot where it jumps forward in the track playback. To help confuse things more I put on a new, 180 gram reissue of the track through my Beogram 4000 (with an MMC-20CL) and a SACD version of the track from a Yamaha 2300 SACD player. Both sounded good of course but I think it would be hard for me to pick out the tracks from a blind listening test. I am going to route the samples through one more set of speakers, a pair of Yamaha NS-2000 monitors. 

-sonavor

(Kate Bush sample)

For me it is track 4, then 1, 3 and lastly 2. 

Most of all it reminds me how good "digital" sounds if I compare the samples with the same song on (any) streaming service  ;-). 

Peter

Beethoven's 7th - Presto would be good I think.

The Rolling Stones track was good though. It has a good mixture of chorus through the Jagger vocal and guitar start to the band kicking in so a nice variation of things to latch on to and try to compare. I tried to focus in on the French horn and the sharpness of the little percussion parts to see if they would help me with the comparison but the more I listened, the harder it got. The sound samples did sound best this evening on my NS-2000 speakers. My computer has an Audigy sound card and I ran the output to a Yamaha CX2 preamp and on to an MX1000 power amp. The tracks sound so close but I still lean towards the last two tracks. Do you notice much difference in them? 

-sonavor

Put us out of our misery - which was which!!!? 😁

They all sounded similar to me with the first one being a little brighter.  

I would say

1st - best

4th - 2nd

3rd - third place

2nd - last.

But none sounded horrible.   I used my swans 2.1 near field monitors on my computer.  

Oh I also put them in audacity so you can see a visual on each cart.

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