Cartridges

There was a time in the mid-1970s when Ortofon cartridges were all over the place. Almost every new sub-£100 turntable seemed to come with an FF15E — a good-sounding £15 budget model – whilst your Rega Planar 3s, Ariston RD40s, and Dunlop Systemdek IIs tended to come with the VMS20E. This was an excellent fit […]

Yoshiaki Sugano’s Koetsu cartridges were characterized by his unique combination of skills. He was described as a musician, artist, calligrapher, and even a swordsman. According to legend, his life was a study of his hero, Honami Koetsu, a 17th-century Japanese painter. Sugano san’s Supex cartridges, which were released in the 1970s and put moving coils

Although it benefited from designer Jonathon Carr’s vast experience, this was not totally hand crafted by Lyra’s artisan Yoshinori Mishima when it was first released in the UK in 2007. Instead, the initial construction was outsourced. It was also the first to use a Namiki MicroRidge line-contact stylus, however it was wrapped in the traditional

The Amplification and Recording Company of Cambridge (A&R Cambridge, later ARCAM) began work on a line of high-quality inexpensive moving magnet cartridges not long after introducing its award-winning A60 integrated amplifier. The P77, which cost £45 in 1977 and featured a (then) trendy parabolic (extended line contact) stylus, was the first to reach retailers. The

The Honda Civic of cartridges has arrived. There are better ones, there are worse ones, but you always know what you’re getting – a quality product that does the job you bought it for. It’s neither flashy or very entertaining, but it’s competent, surprisingly sophisticated, and excellent value for money. As a result, it has

The year is 1987, and Compact Disc is on the rise. Turntables and LPs are rapidly disappearing from high streets and shopping malls, with the new digital silver taking their place. The term “death of vinyl” is being bandied about, and hi-fi journals are warming to the concept. You could assume that now isn’t the

There aren’t many cartridges that are as divisive as this one. Some people say it has a magical, natural melody that is simply not available in any other pick-up. Others believe it is an out-of-date old bruiser that is absolutely out of its element in today’s world. After owning many variations, all of which were

Vinyl began declining in popularity in the early 1990s. It had a ‘end of the century’ vibe to it, as if the sting of death will befall it soon long. As a result, the availability of low-cost, high-quality cartridges began to dwindle. The Ortofon VMS series was silently being phased out of dealers’ inventory lists,

It’s difficult to understand how revolutionary Goldring’s G900 series was when it debuted in the late 1970s. Here was a state-of-the-art technology that weighed a silph-like 4 grams in a world of somewhat heavy, lowish compliance cartridges. It was, for a brief period, the very essence of a modern moving magnet, as zeitgeisty as New

Serious audiophiles used turntables as their primary music source back in the mists of time, when hi-fi was as widespread as mobile phones are now. Upgraders should buy the greatest possible design available, which generally meant a single speed Scottish deck, according to the publications of the day. This necessitated the development of good but