UncleMeat

Are the high res. services that much better than a CD or standard streaming quality? Do free services like Pandora, etc and Youtube (licensed music) dither their tracks so they are of lesser quality?

Nice, you got post #10000 Rod!

Listen for the 'acoustic saw' throughout this song. There are also times when you can hear the player pop the saw to start the resonance but it does not start to resonate. The sound of the saw floats around in the soundstage!

Looks like Blondie noticed long before I did that Buddy Holly had a 'punk' sound too!

Youtube deleted the previous link/recording, this one via vinyl is better than the 'remastered' version (but probably will also get taken down).

If you liked your AL-III's you will also like Magnepans. I have not heard 1.7's, but my MG-IIB's were really nice sounding. They didn't have the ribbon tweeters like the IIIA so the highs were slightly dull. The newer 1.7's should be better in that dept. What I really liked about them was the pinpoint location image they generated. I heard a similar sound with Charlie's self-built ESL's at Carverfest last year, in fact his were a bit better than I recall the Magnepans being. Having said all of that I absolutely love my Carver ALS w/60" ribbons. They get the bass note that's lacking in the Magnepans. Magnepans have a very fast/realistic mid-bass note but don't carry it deep enough. Sunfire TSW should fix that.

No, 300pF is almost always too high, use the 0pF or 180pF setting. Try 180, then switch to 0. If the sound improves then leave it at 0. Usually if the cartridge is over-loaded it will sound muddy.