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For Dusty.

Finally set up the airmotiv 5s. They are very good.

Got out on the far too busy W&OD trail today. So many large groups of people out walking and flapping their arms around. Still managed to beat one PR on a bike that is over 4 pounds heavier than my normal bike. I haven't been on the road bike since February so I am thinking I will take the Cervelo out tomorrow to see how many records I can break early in the morning when all the walkers are still asleep/in church.

Ralph Macchio is now as old as Pat Morita was when the first Karate Kid started filming.

Went to Mellow Johnny's bike shop in my free day in Austin. They had a Santa Cruz Superlight I wanted to try. On paper it seemed like everything I was looking for -- a little smaller than the Tallboy, and cheaper. It rode OK on pavement but the backend was really loose on gravel or slick grass. Sitting right next to it was a Santa Cruz Tallboy, same bike I rode in Fairfax except maybe different front fork. It was a raw aluminum look and is sweet. When I rode it in Fairfax, I thought it was way too big for me. This time it felt right and I had no problem getting on it. Could the rental have been setup differently, or am I just getting used to adult sized bikes? I rode it and it was great and the size feels good. Then took a rental Giant Anthem on a trail here, which was all rocks and not a lot of fun. The Giant was a size small (all they had), which fit my legs, but I was really cautious about going over the bars and now I see the benefit to a proper fitting size for the torso. Then stopped by Bicycle Sport Shop where they had the exact same Tallboy for $350 less, except they don't want to be accommodating on shipping/sales tax issues. So I left and will keep looking around - Mellow Johnny's will ship for me if i want it. Might need to do some local rentals in VA on home trails

Well, as you may or may not know I really love these cartridges. In fact, I will never own any other brand, save a Denon DL-102, or some other mono cartridge, and even then I'd have a custom mono cartridge made when I could afford it. Here's a product listing: http://www.sibatech.co.jp/ZYX/ZYXcatalog.htm as well as a picture of the R-50 Bloom: My cartridge is a special ordered low-output version, which comes in around 0.24mV. One nice thing about these cartridges is that the vertical and horizontal compliance is the same across the line, as is recommended tracking force, stock weight, recommended load, etc. etc. This makes moving up (and down) the line pretty easy. I used to own a R-1000 Airy as well as a R-100 Yatra and 2 years ago, I decided to "downgrade" to the ~$550 R-50 Bloom. So, recently I decided to have my cartridge returned to Japan to have it inspected and cleaned. Well, I came to find out that this might not be cost effective for the Bloom, due to its relatively modest price and was forwarded to Doug Deacon, a name you may recognize from Audio Asylum or Audiogon. I was a bit worried, as I had only cleaned this cartridge with Zerodust between sides, no dry brush, no nothing... I also included my VPI headshell weight that I have been using to help mate this cartridge to my Nottingham arm (note in the excerpt below, Doug thinks the weight was made my Elusive Disc, not so it's made by VPI and resold by Elusive Disc). Anyways, here's Doug's reply after spending an afternoon with the cartridge: CLEANING I visually inspected your Bloom under magnification. There was some buildup of foreign matter on the stylus and near the end of the cantilever. Not a lot but enough to justify a good cleaning. After 30 minutes of work it looked much better. There's one stubborn spot which may or may not be foreign material, but it's 99% clean. Most important, the stylus contact surfaces are now pristine. I took photos and I'll email you "before" and "after" shots, once I figure out how to upload from my new camera. ;-) LISTENING I mounted the cartridge last night and we played 2-3 familiar sides. This is the first Bloom we've heard and I thank you for that opportunity. Paul and I entirely agree on what we heard... What a great little cartridge! It offers a large proportion of every good thing our UNIverse does - for 1/10 the price - and it does absolutely nothing wrong. Unlike most entry level MC's there are no colorations, no sluggishness, no coarseness, no artificial anything. The trademark ZYX honesty and clarity are all there. The Bloom's few sins are minor sins of omission, a little less of this, a drop less of that - the kind of audiophile extremes you never notice unless you're used to hearing them. What you do notice is that the Bloom plays real music and makes you want to sing along (which I didn't, fortunately!). We were frankly expecting a lower level of performance. Nakatsuka-san has produced a superb entry level model. We've heard $4K competitors that we'd toss in the dumpster in favor of a Bloom. ) FUTURE CARE Some of that foreign matter looked like a clear gel, perhaps from your Zerodust? I would caution against too frequent use of that. Any gunk that pulls away from it and sticks to the stylus/cantilever is difficult to remove safely. Magic Eraser-ing followed by a dry brush is all you need for regular maintenance, as described in the document I sent. RANT_ON Your Elusive Disc headshell weight is, as you know, slightly magnetic. Pardon me, but what idiot specified a magnetic material for use in close proximity to a sensitive motion detector/signal generator containing powerful magnets? Do not use this weight. It will distort the magnetic fields inside the cartridge and affect the linearity of the signal. You do need the weight, but try to find a something suitable. VPI makes one. You can get it from them, from a VPI dealer or from online sellers like Acoustic Sounds or Music Direct. I have no experience with it so I'm only hoping it's non-magnetic. Of course we hoped that about the first one... ( You could DIY something with a piece of brass, or just drill two holes in a nickel (whose weight is perfect.) If you use a nickel, I'd mount it above the headshell with washers both below and above. The washers will help isolate it from resonances. If you mount a nickel flat on the headshell, stray energies will bounce off it back into the cartridge, muddying the sound. (I've tried it, trust me.) RANT_OFF