Phono Cartridge Reviews

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Phono Cartridge Reviews
Allaerts MC2 Finish Gold phono cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 30, 2007  |  First Published: May 01, 2007  |  0 comments
These are great times for analog, and I'm happy to have played a small part in the revival, but recently the demand for some products has outstripped supply; getting review samples has been next to impossible. I've requested an Audio Research PH7 phono preamplifier for literally years now, but ARC can't build them fast enough, so they don't need a review. The more they sell, the greater the buzz, and the greater the buzz, the more e-mails I get from readers asking for a review. It's not nice to not be needed.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner # 305: Degritter record cleaner & Aidas Gala Gold LE cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 21, 2020  |  40 comments
Cavitation revolutionized record cleaning more than a decade ago, when Reiner Gläss's Audiodesksysteme introduced its original fully automatic machine. Mr. Gläss's innovative machine, which automatically spun the record in ultrasonically cavitated water, then dried it with fans, at first was plagued with reliability issues, and because it is sealed, it was not easy to repair.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge ReviewsPhono Preamp Reviews
Analog Corner #249: LKV Research Veros One phono preamp, Triangle Art Apollo MC cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 09, 2024  |  First Published: May 01, 2016  |  0 comments
Designer Bill Hutchins, of LKV Research, builds the 2-SB moving-magnet/moving-coil phono preamplifier in North Conway, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire; he uses as many US-sourced parts as possible, and sells his products factory direct. I reviewed the 2-SB in March 2014, on AnalogPlanet.com: the 2-SB's sound was exceptionally fine—especially if you like refined, solid-state quiet and detail, and especially considering its then-price of $2500. Since that review's publication, the 2-SB has been upgraded with a version of the third gain stage from LKV's JFET-based Veros One phono preamp ($6500; see below), and its price has risen to a still-reasonable $3000.

In May 2014, Bill Hutchins introduced the Veros One phono preamplifier ($6500).

Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge ReviewsTurntable Reviews
Analog Corner #250: Ikeda 9mono, van den Hul Crimson XGW cartridges, PBN GrooveMaster Vintage Direct turntable
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 09, 2024  |  First Published: Jun 01, 2016  |  0 comments
The review gear piles up, and it's time for a late spring cleaning—not that any dust has gathered on the uniformly excellent products covered in this column. I'll start with two very different phono cartridges.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner #253: Mikey Gets Ortofon SPU'd
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 02, 2023  |  First Published: Sep 01, 2016  |  0 comments
Last spring, at the High End show in Munich, I met with Leif Johannsen, R&D manager and chief designer of Ortofon, who walked me through the company's exhibition. Among the new products he showed me were two low-cost, low-output SPU (stereo pickup) moving-coil cartridges.

Leif Johannsen told me that Ortofon decided to produce two low-priced SPUs so that more people could afford them and enjoy their particular sound. Their new SPU #1 comes in two flavors: the SPU #1S with spherical stylus ($599), and the SPU #1E with elliptical stylus ($659)—hence the model names.

Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner #254: Audio-Technica AT-ART1000 phono cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 07, 2023  |  First Published: Oct 01, 2016  |  0 comments
Recently, after 36 years at Audio-Technica, Mitsuo Miyata retired—by which time he'd run out of business cards. Nonetheless, when I met him in early July at A-T's headquarters, in Machida, Japan, he handed me a card. A line had been drawn through the original cardholder's name; under it, handwritten, was Miyata's name.

Japanese culture is so formal that there is a precise etiquette of how to offer one's business card: Hold the card lengthwise in both hands, gripping it between thumbs and index fingers, and present it with a slight bow. For someone with so long and distinguished a career and multiple patents to his name, Miyata's offering was casual. Later, an A-T staffer told me, with a laugh, that he'd never before seen Miyata in a tie and jacket, both of which he wore for our meeting.

Today, the inventor of Audio-Technica's new AT-ART1000 cartridge is better known around company headquarters as a gentleman farmer—a grower of legendary blueberries, Japanese eggplants, and corn. His home-built stereo system is also said to be pretty special. I had been invited to meet him, and to get an exclusive look at the challenges of assembling and testing the AT-ART1000.

Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge ReviewsPhono Preamp Reviews
Analog Corner #258: Dan D'Agostino Momentum Phonostage & Gold Note Tuscany Gold MC cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 10, 2023  |  First Published: Feb 01, 2017  |  13 comments
At the beginning of this century, when the vinyl resurgence was at best nascent and few believed it would be as strong as it is today, Boulder Amplifiers manufactured a phono preamplifier that cost $29,000. I reviewed that model, the 2008 (now discontinued), in the July 2002 issue. With a power supply that would probably be more than adequate for a high-wattage power amp, it was built to a standard approached by few other makers of phono preamps...

With his lines of power amplifiers and preamplifiers well established, Dan D'Agostino—the founder, CEO, and chief designer of the company that bears his name—set about designing a phono preamplifier.

Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner #264: Ortofon Windfeld Ti Cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 11, 2022  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2017  |  0 comments
Ortofon (footnote 1), which turns 100 in 2018, launched the original Windfeld cartridge nearly a decade ago. Named for cartridge designer Per Windfeld—who had just retired at age 75, after 30 years with the company—that top-of-the-line cartridge cost $3400 at the time of its introduction.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner #268: Grado Lineage Epoch phono cartridges
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 14, 2022  |  First Published: Dec 01, 2017  |  1 comments
Brooklyn-based Grado Labs has been in business for 64 years, manufacturing moving-iron phono cartridges, headphones, and, for a while, even a unipivot tonearm with a wooden armwand, as well as the sophisticated, S-shaped Signature Laboratory Standard arm.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner #271: Koetsu Rosewood Mono, Kuzma CAR-50 and CAR-60 phono cartridges
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 08, 2022  |  First Published: Mar 01, 2018  |  1 comments
In 1964, Shure Brothers shook up the cartridge market by introducing the original V-15 moving-magnet cartridge, which then cost $67, equivalent to about $530 today. It came packaged in a deluxe, wooden, jewelry-style box—common practice for today's cartridges, but back then unheard of.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner #272: Kuzma CAR, Miyajima Madake Snakewood, TechDAS TDC01 Ti phono cartridges
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 08, 2022  |  First Published: Apr 01, 2018  |  4 comments
At Stereophile, we don't generally allow Mulligans—review do-overs. Usually, we take a second look at a product we've reviewed only when the first sample turns out to have been defective, especially if it was damaged in shipping—and we rarely do even that.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge ReviewsPowerline Accessory Reviews
Analog Corner #273: Soundsmith Hyperion phono cartridge & AudioQuest AC power products
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 11, 2022  |  First Published: May 01, 2018  |  36 comments
Peter Ledermann, founder and chief designer of Soundsmith, Inc., began his adventures in phono cartridges by reverse-engineering Bang & Olufsen's Moving Micro-Cross moving-iron cartridges for customers B&O had abandoned when it got out of the LP player business, and putting them into production. The B&O cartridges were of the direct plug-in variety; once they were no longer made, a worn or broken B&O cartridge would render a B&O turntable unusable.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge ReviewsPhono Preamp Reviews
Analog Corner #276: van den Hul The Grail phono preamplifier & Colibri Signature Stradivarius phono cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 12, 2021  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2018  |  4 comments
Among the electrically connected, the phrase short circuit induces panic and horrific images of tripped breakers, blown fuses, acrid blue smoke, and melted circuit boards. Nonetheless, near short circuits are becoming popular among the analog set. Moving-coil cartridges of an inductance and impedance so low they're nearly short circuits are now more common, thanks to powerful neodymium magnets that help produce more and more electrical output from fewer and fewer turns of coil wire. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is the Haniwa HCTR01 Mk.II cartridge, which has an internal impedance of 0.4 ohm and an inductance of 0.3µH.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge ReviewsTonearm Reviews
Analog Corner #278: Swedish Analog Technologies LM-09 tonearm; DS Audio Master1 optical cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 09, 2021  |  First Published: Oct 01, 2018  |  7 comments
Despite one website's recent claim that "Vinyl's Revival Is Already Fading," Nielsen SoundScan recently announced that vinyl sales for the first half of 2018 were up 19.2% over 2017, led by Jack White's Boarding House Reach, with 37,000 copies sold so far (and we know that N/S misses a great deal of the action). While on the West Coast looking for business, a friend of mine who's about to open a major vinyl-pressing plant on the East Coast was told by everyone that they're experiencing "double-digit vinyl growth." No one was seeing a slowdown ahead.
Continue Reading »
Analog CornerPhono Cartridge ReviewsTonearm Reviews
Analog Corner #281: Klaudio KD-ARM-AG12 tonearm and Ikeda & Tedeska phono cartridges
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 08, 2021  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2019  |  2 comments
How do you like your tangential-tracking tonearm: with a captured air bearing? If so, a stationary bearing and moving rail—or a moving bearing and stationary rail? A hovercraft-style air bearing? Trolley-wheel or servo-mechanical bearing? Or pivoted, with some kind of offset at the pivot or the headshell—or both? In today's crowded market of analog playback, you can buy whatever type of tangential tracker you prefer, from Bergmann, Clearaudio, Kuzma, Reed, Schröder, Thales, and others.
Continue Reading »

Pages

X