Look, it’s not that hard to rate cameras, really. Mostly, it all comes down to personal favorites and professional standards: I might be quirky enough to prefer Alpas over Nikons, or Hasselblads over Rollei SLRs, but there’s no really effective way to tell the difference between camera brands simply by comparing the photographs you took on your summer vacation. Introduced in 2003 by LP GEAR to the US and beyond, the AT95E with its overarching radiance and modest price was soon recognized as I am curious if your collegues at Stereophile (people who do this for a living) were able to easily identify your rig. Clearly I have no business being an audio reviewer. I found the process of listening and comparing fairly exhausting. It was fun to do as an experiment, but I wouldn't want to do it for a living! And that isn’t all: Women’s brains are different in many ways to men’s brains. But, how does that affect the differences in “hearing” we could measure -- let alone the ones we can’t, yet, because we don’t know what they might be? Obviously, nobody can say, for sure.

The VM95 Series suspension design and compliances of VM95 Series have been designed for optimum audiophile reproduction.This is not to say that at 500 hrs a SAS stylus is "worn out" - but at that stage the wear has reached the point where distortion at 15kHz surpasses the level specified by Jico for a new stylus. (Which I believe is 3%). At LP GEAR®, our philosopjy runs counter to the usual corporate convention. We believe that products created for perfection should last a lifetime of enjoyment or much longer like the Guarneri violin. Older than the USA— Here’s another: We know that men and women “hear” differently -- women can hear better in the “treble” range than men. Still, the famous “Grado bounce” was somewhat in evidence and those of you who own or have owned Grados know what that is. Still I wouldn’t worry about it in the proper mass arm. More problematic is the Grado’s susceptibility to motor-induced hum, particularly on Rega ‘tables or others with motors mounted directly under the platters. Indicates whether MUID is transferred to ANID, a cookie used for advertising. Clarity doesn't use ANID and so this is always set to 0.

The Audio Technica AT95E isn’t a beauty. If you are after it, be ready to classify it as a classic built mainly to perform and not sit pretty. I was pleased, however, that holding it didn’t give an air of fragility. Dynamics are far superior and better nuanced. You can follow all of the instruments with far greater ease yet there’s no sense of unnatural “hyper-detail”.Its transient performance was also fast and very clean. The cymbals sparkled realistically and were sized just right. You could easily hear the guitar comping on the right channel and the piano’s body, transient definition and physicality were also notably good. The stereo should be good enough to not be outplayed by the AT-LP120. Good enough to keep the AT-LP120 reasonably honest…

The only file that played at the right speed was the Anna/Continuum/Ypsilon. All of the others were fast. I wonder if that played any role in the relatively low ranking of the expensive rig. But the higher output level of the VM540ML and the fact that it is an Audio-Technica product that potentially will be easier to fit and align on my AT-LP120 are two small factors that make the VM540ML the one that I will choose.Took a chance for the price and I am very impressed. Very clean and right out of the box had both good high and low end in my opinion. I have mine hooked to my band's powered mixer and 15 JBL's and sounds great at high volume. Past articles say it takes a while for the stylus to break in and once it is broken in tends have an even better sound. Can't go wrong for the price. Finally, the bass was tested. Since I’d experienced two different qualities, I told myself to place my expectations in the middle. Hence, I expected no punch from the bass but I expected its presence at the very least.

It especially well defined the slight ambience around the saxophone and I thought its presentation of Ms. Taylor’s voice was especially convincing and pleasing. First of all thanks to everyone who participated. More did than we initially expected. This is a learning experience for sure. Future such surveys will feature “normalized” files so levels will be equal. I’ll be far more careful about clipped files too. For example, here’s one issue: Human beings have two “brains,” one in the “gut” (or viscera) and the other in our skulls. And we “hear" through both, though only the skull-brain is directly attached to our ears. (Mostly, our viscera are more responsive to the bass regions.)Prices valid in stores (all including VAT) until close of business on 29th November 2023. (Some of these web prices are cheaper than in-store, so please mention that you've seen these offers online.) I was almost right. Only that this time, it surpassed my expectations. The bass actually gave a little punch- definitely not the type that you feel in your guts but it was there and if it wasn’t, you would notice and miss it sorely. So while it was great, it did much better than the midrange. The cymbals have a soft “air brake” kind of quality and Ms. Taylor sounds somewhat veiled but if your system needs some taming, this one will do it without turning it into mush. Images are on the large, not particularly well defined side and soundstage depth is on the flat side. I’d go for the AT 95SA’s somewhat brighter, more lively “transient-snappy” performance and greater detail retrieval.