Blue Dragon/Red Sparrow Cartridge - an extraordinary feat of achievement by Koichi san of Top Wing

Longinus

I don’t understand why you guys have been shy in sharing on forum nowadays.  This is not just another cartrduge but one that is totally free of magnetic distortion due to theabsence of a generator!  It is a mind boggling analog experience!  Hope you guys can share more. Those who visited Master Chik in the past few weeks so speak up!

VoyR

Blue dragon is extraordinary.  it has much more information than my air tight opus, and all cartridges sound very slow. The absence of a generator is a real engineering feat.  

R_K

How I would love to hear this with the MC-One phono equalizer . Sure to make a magical combination...

wavac

Robert,

I installed blue dragon.I owned quite a few good one: vdH colibri, madake snakewood, lyra atlas, goldfinger etc.  I have to say that I agree after expericing blue dragon in my own system, all other carts sound slow and dull in comparison.  Inner resolution exceeds everything that I know of.  The absence of the generator releases so much more spatial details than vdH colibri platinum, and I really mean much more.  

The La Folia recording shocked my wife abd friends in awe by the blue dragon.  And the quality of vocal is quite a lot better than madake too. This is easily evident by PT’s iphone record of Sam Hui’s LP.  I verify personally in my own system, that is quite an insane level of playback.  koichi san’s groundbreaking idea really shines. 

Raymond

This cartridge is extraordinary. I also have many top cartridges, you name it.  My collection of
vinyl dated back almost 4 decades.  I enjoyed them all with the advances of technology over time with different arms, turntables, amps etc.  I knew the recording inside out of all the details, positionings etc. Blue Dragon, I wasn’t prepared for such revealation of so much more, when magnetic distortion is completely eliminated.  Bravo!  An original engineering feat by Koichi san. Now I believe why the shell is made from a manufacuturer that make rockets in Japan.  And i mean REAL rockets. 

乙女

其實我也不明白大家為何現正在才討論青龍。可能PT花了大部分時間在臉書宣傳，但我還是較喜歡文字的交流。唱頭表演又確是好難形容，因為變數太多，但青龍冇鐵芯設計又真的非常獨特。國內發燒友以音色為主，最重要是溫潤的中音和順滑的高音，但是不重視開揚度，拍子的精確，泛音的分佈，以及節奏的變化，和低音的缐條和層次。因為得到了這些後，他們總是覺得中音薄了。

乙女

青龍演出來的音樂，和現場的開掦感是一致的感覺。空間的描述可是一絕，並非發焼友所認識的三維空間，而是空間從四方八面由高到低的擴散。

Piano Tuner

Another user is shocked by the blue dragon. 

kfm

I took the plunge and I'm in awe with the Blue Dragon.

Its a bit premature for me to write with minimal hours of listening but i could not resist to say that this cartridge is very weird in a phenomenal way.  No generator but the extensions in the XYZ axis are extraordinary.  First thing i notice was that it was ultra refined which required some minor adjustments of speaker positioning. Once achieved, the headroom and sidewalls disappear and this was tremendous.  Its is lightning fast.  This cartridge is not for the fainthearted...

This is amazing for me at such early stages of listening.  Im eagerly expecting more of a shock at 100 and 200 hours.  I need to understand the unexpected..

Happy listening.

Khairul

Azzurri

PT mentioned Blue Dragon to me a while ago.  At that moment, I thought it was just another good stuff which AE already got plenty.  Not until PT sent me the video taken with his iPhone playing a Sam Hui song with Blue Dragon did I realise how crazy Blue Dragon was.   I then arranged for an audition and a few days later, I had already had the Blue Dragon installed in my system.   It is a perfect match with my Thales Statement arm.

I was using Madake before which was well known for its vocal output.   The Blue Dragon vocal is superior than Madake that the voice is more natural and detailed.    Sound of throat and respiration is clearer.   Also the shape of the mouth is less exaggerated.  When I played live music, the liveness and the ambience were better rendered.   To put it simple, Blue Dragon is just like a magnifying glass for me to see (listen) more details.

As Khairul said above, I am also eagerly expecting more of a shock after my Blue Dragon totally runs in.

Longinus

Blue dragon revives my interest in analog playback. I had somewhat lost interest in analog due to lack of time. And the digital playback of trinity dac in my opinion is still ground breaking after 4 years particularly for PCM hi res files, and the fact that PT uses it at his home says a lot already.  Back to analog, frankly speaking I am not the type of Koetsu guys who see analog is mostly the density of mid range. Master Chik told me to use van den hul plantinum colibri, and later on I changed to goldfinger Statement the latest version. Both are good for particular of music.  It is naturally reflected from the type of music I play the most.  In the days of goldfinger, I play symphonic music more. With vdh, I play violin more. With Madake, I listen to vocal more. With Lyra atlas, I listened to jazz more.  But with trinity dac, I play all kind of music all the time, very balanced.  Analog cannot do this, at least my analog, until the installation of blue dragon last week. 
 

Longinus

I don’t feel at least in my system that the blue dragon plays any particularly music especially good.  I find the openness of the music energy is very lively for all genre of music, the rhythm drives me to tap my feet frequently.  It is quite a feat as I had many cartridges before. Now, they are all for sale.  I don’t need them any more. I want my analog to be balanced, don’t want any particular favour. I don’t like use different Arm and Cartridge to play different music.

The Red Sparrow will be interesting!

Jeff

i have to agree Blue dragon changes my perspective on analog.  It goes beyond audiophile jargon, and Lyra comes to mind as it aces all audiophile attributes.  The BD is about wholesomeness and openness never experiences by any cartridge before in my own journey.  Musicality is awesome.  To yield the best of it, the phono stage better has 70db gain.  

The red sparrow, I am keeping my finger cross. 

Darth Vader

I agree with everyone.  It set my expectation high on Red Sparrow

emperor

I installed blue dragon on Thales statement arm too - this is an amazing cartrdige in all areas. It is not another change of preference as Longinus highlighted.  It is a new experience. 

Marvel

Finally I can sign on again.  For some reason, my iPad browser does not have any response after I have keyed in the right password,  I now have to type over my mobile.  Anyone who has similar experience before?  It hits me several times in the past few weeks.   My laptop PC was sent for repair as well!  Anyone who knows marvel long enough know that I am a killer of electronic stuff!

To cut the long story short,  I has Seiryu青龍installed several weeks ago on my vertere reference arm.   It goes all the way into the Lars Monica and Eric via Robert's MC1 which is highly regarded by myself on its directness on musical presentation. 

Such combo has heightened my vinyl listening pleasure by a few orbits above the Earth!  The confluence of absolute transparency, extreme minute transient response and 3 dimensional granularity has blown me off record after record!  Madake snake wood with Wadax digital phono was considered an ultra end couple in my system,  Seiryu and MC1 just makes me hate myself in self demolishing my previous position again!  And such improvement is not just on a few records,  it is on all the records that I have listened since day 1 after installing this new combo. 

Thanks to master chik who came over twice to ensure everything is done properly!