The Shelter 5000 is a big and heavy cartridge. It weighs in at 11g and, together with the Dynavector headshell*, weighs a total of 28g. I had to bring out the heaviest counterweight for the Dynavector's stub-arm in order to balance it out.

Setting tracking weight at 1.9g, first impressions after dropping the stylus onto one of my favourite test records, Steely Dan's Gaucho, and I wondered if I had got the volume wrong. I turned it up further and yikes turned it back down again! Surface noise was the lowest I've yet experienced. It required setting a new baseline in my head.

I hear the structural solidity of the Dynavector DV-20X2L, but not its darkness. The lush midrange of the older Shelter 501-II is replaced with the most detailed, separated and dynamic space I've yet heard. Not at all lush. Energy keeps coming to mind - the 5000 has huge energy. It has knockout attack and clout.

At the high end is the extension of the AT-33PTG but with much finer detailing and texture and a loss of the AT's slightly glassy and shouty nature. The separation of instruments is incredible and I can hear into the music more than ever before. I can almost walk around the strands of music, focussing on each part as I wish.  What this cartridge seems to do that some of my previous mid-priced ones didn't is to bring out events hidden deep in the mix and make them obvious for the first time. It's not that they weren't there before, but now it makes you really listen to them. This is in addition to the more immediately obvious dynamics, incredible sense of swell towards climaxes and leading edge clout.

Just two examples: in Whole Lotta Love on Led Zeppelin II, the steel tubular bells have a metallic shimmer all of their own, a far cry from the 'clang' that they usually sound like. In Yello's Flag, especially in Tied Up, there is an impossible amount of detail presented but what smacks you in the head is the brass, rising way above the average level of the track.

Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman has two great opening tracks Where do the Children Play? and Hard Headed Woman. Both demonstrated very ably the Shelter’s ability to really swell with the music, to achieve crescendos which remove any notion of songs having an average level throughout. I set a volume level, the intro to the song entered relatively quietly and then the build up forced me to sit up and listen, so thoroughly gripped was I by the knockout punch.  Playing Sensation and Slave to Love from Bryan Ferry’s Boys and Girls, it was obvious that this mid-eighties album was cut hot in the typical manner of that decade. However, despite this the percussion held steady and true throughout the songs no matter how busy the mix became.

Some time later, I still love the 5000.  The stylus is coming to the end of its useful life and I must make a decision about having it re-tipped.  That won't be hard, though, as I will be very happy to have it back for another run.

*I no longer use the Dynavector headshell, having discovered the even more superb Thomas Schick Graphite headshell.