CES 2008

Sumiko's Norbert Schmied showed us their new upscale cartridge. "What's it called?"

"Can I get back to you on that? Let's just call it the TBD," he said.

"What can you tell us?"

It has a pauferro body and a Boron cantilever. The top plate is chrome, "for a smoother, tighter interface with the headshell," and the backplate of the motor assembly is extremely rigid. The generating magnets are Alnico and the stylus has a line-contact profile. Output will be 0.5mV.

Price is projected to be substantially above that of the $2000 Celebration—possibly in the $4000 range.