My new Soundsmith Straingauge cartridge

Peter, only the Zu 103 on my Salvation/Terminator. But I have a good recollection of esp. my previous Lyra Parnassus, and Transfiguration Temper and Orpheus, all of these on my Michell Orbe/SME V/Tom Evans Groove Plus SRX phono.
The Parnassus was unbelievably tone dense and rhythmic, really hypnotic, but definitely on the lush, romantic divide. The two Transfigurations were cooler and more neutral, and a lttle more ho-hum as a result.
I know it's a fruitless task to ascribe neutrality easily to an audio component, but I do believe the SG is close to combining the rhythmic drive of the Parnassus and the even handedness of the Transfigs, and with no aspect highlighted I'll call the SG very neutral, but involving.
It's really transparent, and it really allows notes to appear out of apparent nothingness, bloom naturally, and decay to nothing again. Other carts really sound like diamond in wax. You're not aware of this until you 'hear' it's absence.
And it's synergising nicely, speed artifacts minimised nicely with my rim drive tt, tangency artifacts minimised nicely with my linear tracking arm, and now tracking artifacts minimised nicely with the SG.
Am I overusing the word 'nicely'? LOL.

Peter, additionally the box is not a phono stage, but an 'energiser', so is an all-in-one system, although there are other units out there that can be substituted, valve based (Dave Slagle's comes to mind).
A BIG BIG plus point is future cost: replacement stylii are only a few hundred $s - Lyra Atlas replacment is $4000 I believe!?

Thanks Spiritofmusic. I was not sure if your new cartridge needed that "energiser" or not. The replacement stylus cost is wonderful. I wish they were all so inexpensive. Congratulations again.

I have heard these a couple of times at shows, but always in unfamiliar systems so could not separate the sound of the cartridge. Enjoy your completed analog front end.

You may want to read the recent review on the SG-220 Strain Gauge by Jack Roberts of Dagogo, and almost more importantly, the comments from both an owner, and an early developer. Fascinating.

With that in mind, please understand that there is a long history of SG cartridges, ALL of which have varying response curves. There is a great review on the web showing the numerous models of Panasonic units, all of which varied between each other, not to mention between themselves. SG designs are far more sensitive than MC to variations, therefore, are far more difficult to build.

Somce have asked why no total RIAA is needed - and I came up with a very different way of explaining this, and did so first to Micheal Fremer, the explanation of which he used in his review. Simply, when you CUT with RIAA, (boosting the highs and cutting the lows with a roughly 6dB curve) you are essentially cutting a CONSTANT DISPLACMENT groove, BECAUSE you are cutting it with a magnetic cutting head, whose diplacement is normally a function of frequency. You see, when you input a flat volume/amplitude signal to a magnetic head, it cuts wide displacement groove for low frequencies, and less wide as the frequency goes up. With RIAA, you affecting that, and cutting, as said above, a nearly constant DISPLACEMENT groove. If you play that back with a diplacement sensitive device, you get an essentially flat playback response. If desired, VERY little EQ is needed to flatten it completely so you are in complete agreement with RIAA.

When we first introduced ours many years ago, we did not use any EQ to achieve a maximally flat response. This was the same as was done with the RAM design I worked on almost 40 years ago, as well as Matsushita. There were different philosophies regarding any use of slight EQ; some did, some did not. John Iverson, Jeff Rowland, and others did. RAM did not. I did not in the very early Soundsmith designs, but changed my mind early on. I think our website may not reflect that.

I have also made very significant improvements and changes to the cart design over the many years, as well as having included very slight EQ to totally flatten the response - this was done WITHOUT adding any additional active circuitry, which I am totally against.

I have experimented with two TUBE based systems, each designed by my close friends, Jim Fosgate and Richard Majestic (of RAM), both of whom as some of the finest audio engineers in the world. The FOsgate design was +/- 1/8dB (1/4 db total variation) RIAA from 20-20KHZ. Although interesting, they did not compare well with the solid state highly linear design I make. There were NO transformers used in their designs, for which I am glad, as it is a totally unnecessary component, proposed by someone else as a method for the requirede reversing the phase of one channel of a displacement sensitive design. In magnetic designs, they reverse one channel fo the cartridge wiring internally. Why? The groove walls of a stereo record are cut out of phase.

Again, I am totally against adding such a component (transformer) where it is simply not needed at all. There are far more linear and elegant ways to achieve the channel reversal needed for displacement type cartridges, WITHOUT adding unnecessary, non-linear and frequency limiting circuit components.

Considering the real world considerable variation of the Panasonic cartridges, and the efforts I have made over these many years to achieve uniformity of manufacture and specification of my cartridges, I am glad that they have been well received by so many owners. They are a very different system of vinyl replay, and while certainly not for everyone, they have made their place in the homes of many "believers".

This gives me no small amount of satisfaction.

Peter Ledermann/President/Soundsmith

Peter, I know we've conversed on my Salvation tt/Terminator arm thread as to the merits of rim/direct drive v belt drive. I know we have somewhat divergent views, but importantly, both of us are really happy with our respective choices.
I actually auditioned the SG on my dealer's AMG Viella tt with AMG 12" arm. Was v.much impressed with this fantastically designed and carefully engineered belt drive/pivoted arm combination. But v.much convinced my choices right for me.
Anyhow, if you are in the hunt for a cart to replace your AirTight, I'd really urge you to audition this baby. It's apparent lack of typical analog artifacts is quite disconcerting to start, because their absence is so noticeable, and this engenders some unfamiliarity. Then, a couple of tracks in you realise you're not really hearing the medium anymore, just the message. And now all is relaxing and involving. It's highly transparent neutral qualities surely a good match for your SME 30/12.
My analogy is that it has the characterlessness of the best digital downloads, with the full flavour of the best lp playback.
A real achievment.