Phono Cartridge Reviews

In these waning days of Analog's Last Stand, it might seem absurd to review mid-priced phono cartridges when this space could be given instead to the gear Stereophile usually covers—like $3000 OTL tube amps built by guys like that "Rainbow Man" lone nut who used to dance in the stands at Super Bowls before he took hostages in a hotel room with a .45 screaming, "MIT CAPACITORS!!! MIT CAPACITORS!!!"

C'mon! Nobody buys $3000 OTL tube amps built by guys who wear rainbow afro wigs. No, kids today are buying DIGITAL RIGS, and who can blame 'em? These days, LPs are harder to find than crack, and they're usually found in the same neighborhood. I buy used LPs from an old guy here in Austin who has a garage full of the things, 78s too, but he scares me so bad I never wander too far into his garage without a clear path in case he finally snaps and I have to bolt; the place is strewn with garbage and a half dozen beat-up pairs of old DCM Time Windows.

"I'm always looking for another pair, so let me know if you see any," he rasps to me, wiping the butt of his 12-gauge with a grimy rag. His prices are great, though; last time I went I scored a ton of '60s soul records and a mint copy of the Bee Gees' Cucumber Castle.

So why do I risk getting my ass blown off by some crazy old hermit? Because no matter how much I upgrade my digital rig, my trusty $1195 Well-Tempered Record Player blows it away without half trying. . . That's why I corralled a bunch of promising midpriced cartridges and spent a couple of months settin' 'em up, breakin' 'em in, and listenin' to 'em on my favorite records.

Benz-Micro MC-20E II
I remember thinking to myself when I took my sample of the MC-20E II ($125) out of its box, "Hey, this is a cheap'n'cheezy mid-'70s squawker!" Because instead of the Audiophile-Approved "BENZ" tag, the MC-20E II has that most dreaded of all mid-'70s cartridge logos: EMPIRE! Memories of awful sound during my younger days of wading through cheap Empire, ADC, and Audio-Technica cartridges came flooding back, and visions of trying to get my old direct-drive 'table to sound as good as my uncle's AR clouded my mind. Sticky blue Platter Matters (remember them?), concrete slabs under the 'table—nothing could keep those low-rent '70s cartridges from quacking like Scrooge McDuck.

But Garth Leerer (footnote 1) of Musical Surroundings (footnote 2) explained that even though the name is the same, the MC-20E II has nothing in common with the old '70s Empire cartridges, which were actually manufactured as OEM pieces by Benz anyway, as were my el-cheapo ADCs and Audio-Technicas, as it turns out! No, Ernst Benz shut down Empire's American operation after he bought the company name, and in 1993 his Swiss company is called Empire Scientific AG (footnote 3). In any event, the new "Empire" MC-20E II is a completely different animal from those mid-'70s nightmares I suffered through, and thank Allah for that. Garth told me that both the MC Silver and MC-20E II were made by a Japanese OEM cartridge manufacturer to Benz's specifications; only the more expensive Benz models, like the MC-3i, are made by Benz in Switzerland.

On first glance, the MC-20E II doesn't look very Audiophile-Approved. The cheezy gold-tone body and "Empire" logo don't exactly inspire even $125's worth of confidence, but then the $125 blue plastic Sumiko Blue Point doesn't look like the typical megabuck chunk o'metal/purpleheart/Samsonite cartridge either!

But what really worried me was the MC-20E II's plastic mounting hull; while the Blue Point is screwed tightly to its plastic mounting hull, the Benz just snaps into place. Maybe it's a snug enough fit, but it's hardly the stuff of "tighten 'em down HARD" audionuts who don lederhosen when they set up their cartridges. I guess Benz figures that someone who's going to buy a $125 cartridge only wants to set up and align that cartridge once; the way the MC-20E II is built, the entire cartridge assembly pops off the mount, making stylus replacement EZ-U-Bet.

Benz-Micro MC Silver: $325 MC Silver isn't Martin Colloms's stage name when he cuts audiophile rap records, although I like the idea:

"YO! What up, MC Silver?"

"Word! Aw yeah, got my silver cables in effect, boyeeee!"

No, the $325 MC Silver is just the next step up the line from Benz's $125 MC-20E II. Although it's still got the same "Empire" logo on it as its cheaper sibling, the MC Silver looks a lot more substantial physically, more like the typical audiophile cartridge. The one-piece silver plastic body is definitely more rigid than the MC-20E II's.

Sound What a surprise the Benz-Micro MC-20E II was! I'm telling you, the cheap'n'cheezy looks of the MC-20E II don't exactly portend great sound, but that's just what I kept hearing all through my listening sessions. This $125 gold lamé cartridge is a legitimate rival to the similarly priced Sumiko Blue Point, and in several ways clearly bettered the Blue Point in head-2-head comparisons.

For starters, the Benz's low end was terrific: rich, tight, and tuneful, it had none of the midbass bloat and lack of definition that somewhat mar the standard Blue Point. Considering my initial alarm at the Benz's seemingly flimsy mounting scheme, I was shocked at how deep and tight the 20E's bottom end was. Owners of the WTRP, if you've been fretting about the lack of low-end oomph from your 'table, you need to try the MC-20E II; the match was beautiful, and at no time did I feel the need to switch over to the tighter-sounding Roksan 'table to firm up the bottom.

Because the Benz sounded so yeah! in the low end, I went into a weeklong love affair with all my favorite electric bass records: the first Stanley Clarke solo album (Epic PE 36973), Stanley's Rocks, Pebbles and Sand (Epic JE 36506), and especially Albert Collins's great '81 live album Frozen Alive! (Alligator 4725), with my old friend Johnny B. Gayden on the best-sounding Music Man bass I ever heard. I even hauled out my own P-Bass and started copping bass licks off records again, something I haven't done in years. I'll say it again: for $125, the MC-20E II's bass is downright upright!

Check out Johnny B.'s bass solo on Frozen Alive!'s "Cold Cuts"; after Willie Weeks's solo on Donny Hathaway Live's "Everything is Everything," this might be the baddest electric bass solo of all time. Definitely Stanley Clarke–influenced but in a blues vein, this solo, unlike all modern bass "showcases," never stops holding down the almighty bottom even as Johnny B. burns up the Music Man while my other old friend, drummer Casey Jones, lays down a fat Southside groove. While the standard Blue Point pumped along but somewhat blurred Johnny B.'s bass, the Benz dug in fast and furious, allowing the bass and drums to lock in with much more authority. And Stanley Clarke's snappy Alembic bass cruised through Stanley Clarke's "Vulcan Princess" and Rocks, Pebbles and Sand's too-funky "We Supply" with great weight, depth, and slam. The inexpensive Benz didn't rival the Linn Klyde's sense of bass slam, but for little more than a tenth the Linn's price, it kicks serious booty.

In other areas, it was more of a toss-up between the MC-20E II and the standard Blue Point. While the Benz had slightly better soundstaging, the Blue Point came out ahead in image coherence, HF smoothness, and midrange clarity. On Stevie Ray Vaughan's Couldn't Stand the Weather, the Benz sounded a bit more nasal on the vocal and guitar than the Blue Point, which really excels in this area. Cymbals, too, sounded a little wiry compared to the Sumiko. The Blue Point sounded better with a wider range of source material, but on heavy rock and other groove-heavy music, the Benz juiced my lizard more with its better low-end drive. For the typical Real World audiophile, I think the Blue Point would be the better overall choice, but for hardcore hi-fi rockers (and I are one, you know), the MC-20E II has more guts and gonads. A serious Rock'n'Roll Recommendation!

With the Benz-Micro MC Silver, I'll come right to the point: try as I did, I just couldn't get off to Benz's MC Silver. I tried it on both Well-Tempered and Roksan 'tables, tried switching cables, VTA, tracking force, you name it, but the MC Silver just never came alive for me. It didn't suck, but it was just too bland to stand comparison with the other cartridges in the group. In fact, I thought the $125 MC-20E II was a lot more fun for less than half the price.

The MC Silver is such a frustrating cartridge to write about because it didn't seem to do anything very wrong or very right; it just kind of sat there on the end of the tonearm, sighing, "Ho hum...another record? I guess I can play it for you..." I kept listening for clues as to why I just wasn't enjoying the music coming out of the MC Silver, but I couldn't put my finger on it. There were no horrendous faults anywhere across the spectrum: the bass was decent, the mids sounded fairly clean, and the highs were soft but not objectionably so. Soundstaging and imaging were pretty, well, okay too. What was I missing?

And then it hit me: dynamics. The MC Silver doesn't seem to have any. Even after over 20 hours of break-in, the MC Silver sounded too polite, too reined-in. This had nothing to do with its HF balance; no, the problem was that every time the record told the MC Silver to deliver a quick left jab to the face, the Silver had second thoughts and pulled the punch. I hate this kind of reticence in hi-fi gear, and the MC Silver had this quality in spades.

I could go on, but I won't. Suffice it to say, I was underwhelmed by Benz's MC Silver. For the same price, Sumiko's Blue Point Special knocked it out of the ring in every possible dimension; even Benz's own $125 MC-20E II danced all over its more expensive sibling. Maybe I just got a bum sample. But as it is, I can't recommend the MC Silver.

Conclusion
Of the cartridges I have reviewed in recent iss8es, only the $325 Benz MC Silver comes away without a recommendation. I thought it was not only outclassed by the similarly priced $295 Sumiko Blue Point Special, but that Benz's own $125 MC-20E II sounded substantially more musically involving (footnote 4).

I can confidently recommend both the Benz MC-20E II and the identically priced Sumiko Blue Point. While either will work better in different systems and appeal to different tastes, both offer a true glimpse of high-end phono playback for a very reasonable price. The cheapest Grados may be the least expensive "not shitty" cartridges you can buy, but if you've got something better than a Dual and you want true high-end sound, the MC-20E II and the Blue Point are solid Class D performers and utter steals.

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Footnote 1: Party on, Garth!

Footnote 2: Musical Surroundings was the US distributor in 1993. Benz-Micro North America distributes the cartridges in the US in 2025—Web: benzmicro-northamerica.com/.—Ed.

Footnote 3: See Sidebar 1 for a more detailed history of Ernst Benz and his company.—Ed.

Footnote 4: Art Dudley also reviewed the MC-20E II in October 2007.—Ed.