CARTRIDGES

Miyajima

Noriyuki Miyajima has been making cartridges for nearly three decades, but has only been discovered by American audiophiles in the last few years. His cartridges are nothing short of a profound revelation, a re-engineering of the moving coil concept with an emphasis on the kind of musicality phono cartridges used to have before our present crop of overly technical, analytic and usually sterile sounding designs. The Miyajima cartridges are heavy, low compliance designs that are not suitable for light weight tonearms- in this sense they hark back to the great vintage designs of the beginning of the moving coil period (such as the original Ortofon SPU and Neumann DST.) Miyajima rethought the construction of the moving coil generator, optimizing its parameters through the use of a "cross coil" construction, wound on a non magnetic former, and with an innovative damper system. The Miyajima's are unlike any other moving coil cartridge design, and you can hear this immediately- super dynamic, full, authoritative and musical. The Premium Mono and Shilabe stereo models are both absolutely unbeatable by an other moving coil mono or stereo cartridge at their respective price. In fact, I cannot think of a single competitor to either cartridge at any price which is clearly superior. These cartridges set a high water mark for the true music lover.

	Premium Mono Cartridge Ebony wood body of 10.5 grams, .7 mil conical stylus, true mono design (cannot be used for stereo lp playback- mono only.) Output of .9mV, recommended tracking force 3.5 grams, recommended tonearm effective mass 20 grams, impedance 6 ohms. Price- $980

	Shilabe Stereo Moving Coil Cartridge African blackwood body, weight 10.4 grams. Stylus type Shibata, aluminum cantilever, output .23mV, impedance 16 ohms, compliance 10×10-6cm/dyne, recommended tracking force approximately 3 grams, recommended tonearm effective mass minimum 18 grams Price- $2800

Soundsmith

While the rest of the world's top phono cartridge designers and builders long ago settled for the moving coil type, Peter Ledermann of Soundsmith took a different path. Choosing to design by what he calls "First Principles," Lederman opted for reducing the mass of the stylus/cantilever/magnetic assembly, building incredibly fast and detailed cartridges using the moving iron and strain gauge concepts. These cartridges are unlike any moving magnet (let alone a moving coil) you have ever heard, and are serving to redefine what is possible in a phono cartridge today. OMA offers the two top moving iron models from Soundsmith- the ebony body Voice and the new, low output Sussurro.

Soundsmith's newest, top of the line moving iron cartridge, The Sussurro, was developed by Peter Ledermann with Frank Schroeder, to create a truly new cartridge. This unique design is of medium to low compliance, and low output, at .3mv, which is very similar to high end moving coil designs. Unlike moving coils, the Sussuro has incredibly low moving mass, because of its moving iron generating system, and thus is extremely fast and free of distortion, with phenomenal specs for channel separation, frequency response, etc. The Sussuro is truly a world class cartridge, at the top of the Soundsmith range along with the Strain Gauge systems. Because of its unique design, it does require different loading and amplification from the rest of the Soundsmith moving iron line of cartridges. Contact us for more details and information. Price- $4500 Available in mono at the same price.