Hi Warren;
I would like to give you my impressions of the ABCD-1 I recently bought. I use a Shelter 90X with an output of 0.65 mV.
It took me a couple of hour and a half listening sessions to get my ears around the effects of deploying the demagnetiser. It did not present me with the immediate revelations that I had with my PS III.
The first night I spun out a series of R&B, jazz ensemble and jazz ensemble/vocalist LPs. All sounded familiar and complete. The second night I started out with Jon Batiste: Chronology of a Dream. This is a live recording at the Village Vanguard. I’m familiar with this venue so it is hard to imagine how they fit all of those artists on that compact stage. The room’s acoustics are honest and an active, lively audience allows your ears to make dependable comparison. Right away I was drawn in by the music down the stairs to sit at a table close to the stage. The timbre of the cymbals and drums sat clear in the soundstage. Batiste’s voice stood alone accompanied by his piano its volume building and ebbing with the message.
I’m not a professional reviewer but what crystallized my take on this change in behaviour of my cartridge is the initiation of the sound drum, trumpet, cymbal, voice. The moment of impact, path through the progression and decay of the sound was very compelling in its urgency while retaining the completely natural presence that comes with high fidelity. All this while nothing was working very hard in my system.
Hope this is of some help.
Cheers,
Will