Tripling the stakes on a cartridge

Everywhere else in this hobby I preach diminishing returns. With cartridges, especially over $1,000, I say the opposite. My own ladder is the reason.

The Songbird, about $1,000, replaced my Amethyst and everything opened up. Micro details came through effortlessly, the dynamic range expanded, and the noise floor stayed remarkably low despite the extra amplification a moving coil needs. Then I read the reviews, made a few phone calls and was ready to triple the stakes.

The Starling, around $3,000, does everything the Songbird does but more. The soundstage, the imaging, the layering and the separation all expand, the detail rises without becoming surgical, and the noise floor is simply gone. On my best pressings, Buena Vista Social Club at 45 RPM among them, it is the very best thing I have ever heard in my listening room.

This journey is like getting glasses for the first time: you did not know the world was so blurry until suddenly it was not. By my ears the Starling is two to two and a half times better than the Songbird, and the Songbird twice the Amethyst. People will tell you the opposite, and I strongly disagree.

In cartridges, the law of diminishing returns stops at the door. Everywhere else, I still believe in it.