Audio Note UK IO Limited field-coil cartridge system Review

There are a lot of cartridges on the market, a handful of producers being answerable for the overwhelming majority of the applied sciences and shapes of them. Swapping cartridges out and in of the system to get pleasure from a barely totally different taste of 1’s favourite music is a part of the appeal of the analog expertise. That stated, when one begins to spend extra money on progressively more-sensitive cartridges, tonearms, turntables, and phono cables, to not point out the remainder of the system downstream, the expertise turns into extra unreal. One begins to listen to issues every day fewer and fewer audiophiles will. Accuracy turns into the focus in rising depth and issues can start to get completely psychological. Limited is the profound expertise the place accuracy equates to musicality.

The $16,500 Top Wing Suzaku coreless straight-flux cartridge that I reviewed in July 2020 was essentially the most detailed cartridge I had heard, with a finely balanced suite of strengths in dynamic contrasts, dimensionality and tonal vividness. The trajectory from that have was a seek for cartridges that may both do much more, albeit at the next value, or that may do most of it at a a lot cheaper price. I ventured into cartridges at cheaper price factors to seek out one encompassing the virtues of the TW sans the worth. The first to impress me was the $12,500 Van den Hul The Colibri XGW Master Signature in July 2021. It got here shut when used with the companion $20,000 The Grail SE phono stage. Keeping in thoughts that the $48,000 Pass Laboratories Xs Phono was amplifying the Top Wing, the Van den Hul expertise spoke volumes. Then got here Japanese cartridge veteran producer Miyajima Laboratory’s $7,600 Destiny moving-coil from U.S. importer Robin Wyatt of Robyatt Audio. It flaunted a really properly balanced suite of attributes no sub-$10,000 cartridges that I auditioned by then might match. The one Robin despatched me was a model new one, and even the physicality of it was fairly a magnificence to behold.

In that juncture of time and house, a handful of designs on the dearer finish of the worth spectrum than the Top Wing remained on my audition record, however such evaluate samples are far and few between. Then, the Audio Note UK IO Limited ready record I used to be on since first quarter of 2022 lastly obtained to my order, and after eight months of ready, the cartridge arrived.

Quite just a few cartridges on the market are alleged as “prime” designs by their producers, however totally different designers perceive the idea of ultimacy in another way. When one firm places forth a $16,500 cartridge as its supreme effort and one other proclaims its $5,000 cartridge because the fruit of years of analysis, representing the sum of all the corporate’s data, it’s clear that neither the design groups, manufacturing priorities nor the manufacturing fashions are equals. Then got here the $20,000 Audio Note IO LTD field-coil six-pin cartridge system, the topic of this evaluate, with the outboard energy provide for the cartridge’s field-coil generator, and the attendant $13,000 AN-1S-SOGON six-wire, ten-inch tonearm with its captive, 50-strand 99.99% pure silver litz wiring. This uber costly Audio Note UK cartridge options magnetism generated not by even the strongest everlasting magnet however a stay, flowing DC cost, which is, in flip, electrified by an exterior energy provide unit.

Audio Note UK engineer Andy Grove will focus on the creation and idea of the IO Ltd in a Commentary article to be printed subsequent.

The Audio Note UK IO Ltd cartridge system includes the cartridge itself, an outboard full-sized energy provide unit for the cartridge’s subject coil generator, and the AN-1S six-wire tonearm. There isn’t any magnet however an iron core instead. In addition to the 4 pins in the back of the cartridge for left optimistic/unfavorable and proper optimistic/unfavorable, there are two extra optimistic and unfavorable pins for transmitting a voltage for the aim of energizing the iron core. When energized, the pure iron coil contained in the cartridge physique produces a magnetic subject of low-loss hysteresis loop that’s decrease than even essentially the most highly effective everlasting magnet in existence. The result’s superior linearity and fewer noise.

To make sure the purest in transmission of sign, Audio Note UK fitted the cartridge with the corporate’s personal 99.99% pure silver wire from the coil to the terminals with out break. The wires are about the identical thickness as a hair at 0.05 mm, all wound by hand. Per Peter Qvortrup, firm proprietor, “As there isn’t any machine that may do that, it’s a main cause our cartridges are so significantly better than anything.”

The IO Ltd’s cantilever is product of “additional thick walled, barely tapered” lengthy titanium tube, tapered each on the inside and outside for highest rigidity. The cantilever’s size means diminished motion, enabling superior monitoring potential over advanced, extremely modulated grooves, in addition to discount within the non-linearity of the magnetic subject, and a extremely managed stylus motion.

The stylus is a strong diamond minimize and polished right into a “excellent, pure octagon to a degree of one of the best surgical devices used for eye and different positive surgical procedure, on a diamond lower than half the dimensions of the closest, available choice.” The firm claims this diamond is the best in use on any cartridge to today, and describes its efforts of creating the method of reducing such a diamond as “heroic.” I don’t disbelieve it.

The last mounting process contains an preliminary pinching of the diamond into the cantilever earlier than being glued with a proprietary epoxy resin after which baked for 3 hours to harden.

The physique of the cartridge is the subject of thriller, for the corporate is not going to expose supplies used. Still, the corporate claims the lengthy physique is to attenuate vibration and power storage for translating the sign precisely. Rigidity is additional enhanced, supposedly, utilizing six mounting bolts to safe the cartridge contained in the physique. In reality, this enclosure design is bequeathed to all IO cartridges.

The cartridge and the Power Supply are such delicate tools that as a way to lengthen their operational lifespans, AN-UK instructs the person to change off the unit if not used for various days. Throughout the proprietor’s handbook, this instruction is talked about a number of occasions, one in all them particularly noteworthy for its all-upper-case font and concluding exclamation mark. Of course, I simply wanted to listen to from Peter if he had additional so as to add, and he did: “Switch the cartridge energy off if not being performed for over fifteen minutes, and switch the Power Supply’s important energy off if not used for greater than a number of hours. Before turning the cartridge on for the primary time, customers are urged to interrupt out a voltmeter and measure the voltage off the cartridge’s pins. The voltage/present ought to be set to round 1.2 volt at 0.4 – 0.5 amperes measured on the terminals on the cartridge, utilizing an correct and calibrated meter. This is to guarantee that the energizing coil has the perfect voltage and present.” An electrician pal of mine stopped by and confirmed the measurement in trade for a collector LP that he’s been lusting after.

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March 11, 2024 at 11:22PM