John Yoon-Sung Park, of Pyon Sound, recently listened to both the Jasmine Audio Turtle and Tiger moving coil cartridges after seeing them on my website. He was quite surprised with the performance based on experiences with similarly priced cartridges. These notes weren't elicited by me. They are Mr Park's honest feeling about the cartridges sent to Jasmine. He has since taken up representing the line in Korea, so our big happy family is growing in companies and nations.
John's notes on the Turtle:
The audition of the Turtle is almost complete.
I must tell you that the Turtle is THE ONE HELL OF A CARTRIDGE and performs like a perfect cartridge with our turntable, tonearm, and phono amp system. Its dynamic shading is almost real life-like. Its frequency extension and definition (both bass and treble) are outstanding. Soundstage development is wi~~~der and de~~~eper than I could imagine. At the same time, instrumental localization is really precise. Tonality is truthful and not grainy. Only minor deficiency is the tiny lack of the ultimate texture and detail in the midrange frequency, but its overall resolution belongs, needless to say, to the top class. Taking its retail price into account, this is really an extraordinary cartridge.
I have not started the audition of the Tiger. I would guess that the Tiger would offer overall higher resolution than the Turtle.
Thanks and BR
John
John's notes on the Tiger:
The testing of the Tiger is almost complete. The Tiger builds up its strength on the basis of the Turtle, where the Tiger excels in similar areas in which the Turtle shows its strength. However, the Tiger shows considerable improvement in a coupe of critical areas. The most salient improvement is in the midrange frequency. I guess the reason is due to the less coloration by the Tiger's higher performance. The resolution increases slightly and a tonal sweetness is added. This is more clearly recognizable when I listen to vocals. Tonal sweetness added on vocals makes the audition more pleasant and easier. The improved resolution on the midrange frequency renders more clarified depiction on the complex passages such as full-scale orchestral music and chorus.
The dynamic shading of the Tiger seems a touch less aggressive than the Turtle. The sound stage development of the Tiger is at least as good as the Turtle. However, the improved midrange resolution of the Tiger allows the more defined localization and details of each instrument in the soundstage.
Summing up, the Turtle is an outstanding cartridge for the money, while the Tiger comes in to compensate the Turtle's minor deficiencies with reasonable improvement. I think most audiophiles and analogue music lovers would be happy with the Turtle, while a few more demanding audiophiles would be satisfied with the Tiger.
BR
John
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