Soundsmith Hyperion

The king of carts is the Soundsmith Hyperion Mk2 / a true moving iron cart with amazing specifications. This was hand built by Peter Ledermann for me personally. It was spec'd to match mv turn table with the gold and black body finish. As opposed to the offensive green body it normally comes in (my opinion)

This has the cactus needle cantilever which is lighter and stronger than other cantilevers, and of course the OCL diamond. Read about it online, but this is for someone who wants no compromise. It's a special cartridge indeed. Under the microscope, Soundsmith's OCL stylus looks similar if not identical to Ortofon's Replicant. The tip's effective mass is a low 0.30mg, and the cartridge's compliance is low at 10 um/mN overall (12um/mN in the vertical plane, 7um/mN horizontal).

Other specifications: a frequency response of 20Hz-20kHz, ‡1.0dB; channel separation of $36dB at 1kHz or ¢25dB from 50Hz to 15kHz; output voltage equal to or greater than 0.4mV; a DC resistance of 10-11 ohms; and a very low coil inductance of 2.75mH per channel.
Soundsmith suggests preamp gain of 58-64dB and recommends loading the Hyperion with ca 470 ohms. Because of its low inductance, the Hyperion is not sensitive to capacitive loading. The recommended range of vertical tracking force (VTF) is 1.9-2.1gm.

Smooth Sound: Peter Ledermann claims for his MI cartridges "improved stylus control" that results in both greater channel separation and less "stylus jitter." and thus lower groove noise.