Grado Labs The Reference V1 with SoundSmith Sapphire Cantilever and Nude Line Contact Diamond

The Grado Labs cartridge known as The Reference V1 is a Moving Iron cartridge. I have been using it with a Conrad Johnson PV11 phono section which has 47 dB of gain and a 47kOhm load.
The Reference has a specially cured mahogany body, and it comes in a beautiful wooden case. It is one of the finest cartridges in the Grado line up.
Earlier this year I called Grado to find out about retipping, and they said that rather than retip it, they would give $500 credit for this cartridge in a trade-in for the current model TR V2. If you want it for this purpose, you should call them and confirm that this trade up program is still being offered.
Instead of trading for the TR V2, I sent the cartridge to Peter Lederman at SoundSmith to have the Sapphire cantilever, laser drilled low mass nude contact line diamond installed.

The cartridge came back from SoundSmith last month, sounding better than ever. I have used it for about 25 hours, so it is nearly new.

I had planned to sell it without even listening to it, but my curiosity got the better of me. I've mounted it on two different turntables (one of which has already been sold and the other of which will be offered for sale later this year) and it performed flawlessly. I listened to Barney Kessel and Stephane Grappelli, The Oscar Peterson Trio, and Joe Sample last night. The TR V1 tracked flawlessly, sounded well balanced with excellent pitch and timbre, and presented a great, stable sound stage. I've never heard either Grappelli or Peterson sound any better. The night before I listened to several Nicolette Larson albums, as well as Kenny Burrell and Grover Washington. All have been very nice. Not fatiguing. Excellent tracking. Excellent sound stage. Excellent balance. It's a delightful cartridge.

So why am I selling it? I am downsizing and upgrading. I've taken a shine to the Lyra cartridges, and I am going from 6 turntables down to 3. After sales are complete, the remaining preamps will all be high gain and more suitable for true low output cartridges.


Included in the sale are the cartridge, the Grado box, two mounting screws which can be used to secure the cartridge to a tonearm, SoundSmith's extensive recommendations for cleaning, mounting, aligning, and VTF (1.5 grams is the recommendation), and the SoundSmith box in which it was shipped to me. I am also including the wooden gizmo that Grado calls a stylus guard. I've packed it in the wooden box. The cartridge will be mounted in the SoundSmith box. Honestly, I've never been able to use the Grado stylus guard, so I'm not representing that the stylus guard actually works.
This package weighs less than one pound, and is 3"x7"x9". It is the same package that SoundSmith used to return the cartridge to me after replacing the cantilever and stylus.
If you have questions, please ask. No upcharge for use of PayPal. In fact, I prefer it.