For many years, the standard high fidelity cartridge has been a design called “moving magnet.” There are other types (crystal or ceramic, moving iron and moving coil), but by an overwhelming percentage the dominant cartridge configuration has been the moving magnet. The cartridges we are most familiar with (Shure, Pickering, Stanton, Empire, ADC, etc.) are all moving magnet types. Moving iron is a rather rare form and moving coil has, for the most part, been confined to high end.

Basically, the three names give you a pretty good indication of how they work. All cartridges are tranducers. That is, they take one form of energy and transform it into another. In this case, they take the stylus’s motion and transform it into electrical output as read in millivolts. Magnetic cartridges do this via a principle known to virtually every school child. If you take a horseshoe magnet and draw a nail through it, you can create a small amount of electrical energy. In simple terms this is what all of the magnetic cartridges do. The names tell you which parts move, but fundamentally, you are altering the position of a magnet and a nail relative to each other. 4

All three types of magnetic cartridges are more than capable, if well-designed and constructed, of producing a transducer which will have qualities appropriate to high fidelity music. They will all reproduce a frequency range of 20 to 20,000 Hz with very little deviation from a flat signal. They can all track at light forces and they can all be made with reasonably high compliance.

Then why have high end audiophiles prized the moving coil cartridge? There are several reasons. The first is that not all perceived sound shows up on a spec sheet. And while 20 to 20,000 Hz ± 2 dB may be the same for several cartridges, they may not all sound the same. In fact, the probability is that they won’t. The moving coil design is said to respond faster and to have, therefore, a cleaner and more transparent sound. The moving coil design is also one that has less mass than a moving magnet and its attraction for high end audio buffs stems from that point as well.

But there have been two serious disadvantages of the moving coil design. The first is that it generally provides a very low output voltage, a fraction of a millivolt rather than four or more produced by most moving magnet cartridges. This low output voltage requires a transformer or pre-preamp to step up the signal to one that most pre-amps can accept.

The need for a step-up device has been one factor causing the second serious disadvantage of moving coils—they are expensive. While most high end moving magnet cartridges list at around $100 (with some higher and a great many lower), most moving coil cartridges have sold in the realm of $200. A third disadvantage has been the need to send the entire cartridge back to the manufacturer when you need a stylus replacement.

In the last few years, manufacturers have waged a quiet war on these problems. While once there were only a handful of moving coil cartridges on the market, there are now several more with even more companies looking at the field. Some companies produce moving coil cartridges that require no step up transformer and several have models with user-replacable styli. Finally, the price, while certainly not in the econdmy class, has come down some to the point where the serious, but not rich, audiophile can consider a purchase.

Let’s take a look and listen to three moving coil cartridges. Two, the Satin M-18E and the Dynavector 10X, are of the new transformerless design and the third, the Denon DL-103/T, is a more traditional type with a transformer. Only the Satin has a user replacable stylus.

The Denon DL-103/T was developed several years ago for NHK (the Japanese BBC) as a broadcast standard cartridge. Its low output (0.3 mV) requires a step up transformer, which ups the final output to 3 mV. The cartridge itself is a low compliance (5x10-6 cm/dyne), relatively high tracking force (2.5 grams suggested) model. It employs a conical stylus rather than the more recent and fashionable elliptical.

Even though the cartridge needs a transformer, installation and connection is easy. The cartridge itself is mounted in the usual way, but instead of taking the output leads from the turntable and plugging them into your pre-amp’s magnetic phono input, you plug the leads into the transformer (and attach the ground wire to the transformer’s ground lug). The transformer has similar output leads and those go to the pre-amp along with the transformer’s ground wire. It’s really quite simple.

I listened to several different kinds of music from hard rock to string quartets and found the sound continually pleasing and real. Perhaps what the audiophiles have been saying is true, that a moving coil gives a quicker response and a cleaner sound. The listed frequency curve shows an amazing accuracy from 4 to 40,000 Hz ± 1 dB. I saw no reason to doubt it. It sounds super. The Denon DL-103/T lists for $195, including the transformer*.

The Dynavector 10X requires no step up device. Dynavector has developed a new coil winder that puts more turns of thin wire on the coils and thus boosts its output to 1.8 mV which is acceptable for most pre-amp phono circuits. Compliance is listed at 10x10-6 cm/dyne and suggested tracking force is IV2 grams. If these figures suggest a modem cartridge, you’re right. Frequency response is also a very modem 20 to 20,000 Hz + 2 dB. The stylus is, of course, elliptical and the cartridge carries a suggested price of $120.

The sound, perhaps because of the greater mass necessary to achieve a transformerless output, seems to be not quite as sh(arp as the Denon’s. I was. warned that this is not a “bass heavy” cartridge and to give it a chance to show its balance. After a significant period of time listening to a variety of material I’ve decided that it sounds very well-balanced to me and that it handles bass very well.

The nitty-gritty audio engineering of the Dynavector 10X is very good. But the human engineering aspect leaves much to be desired, so much so that I believe it requires comment here. I discovered that the stylus over-hang cannot be optimized for Dual turntables or for at least some Technics models without modification of the shell.

Another element of design that gave me trouble is the lOX’s stylus guard. It’s a box or hood-like piece of plastic that fits over the stylus and cartridge. If you slide it on from the front, it’s difficult to fit the guard properly without hitting the stylus cantilever in the process. But if you slip it into position, it works better.

One other nice feature of the Dynavector 10X is that while you can’t replace the stylus yourself, EES (Dynavector’s distributor) makes replacement very easy. Rather than return the cartridge to the factory, you can just take it to any Dynavector dealer and get a brand new 10X over-the-counter. The total cost for the exchange is $66, or 55% of the original cost of the cartridge.

The Satin M-18E is also a transformerless design, but it does have a user replacable elliptical stylus. Like the Dynavector, the M-18E achieves its relatively high (2 mV) output by using more turns of ultra-thin,wire. Recommended tracking force is 3/t - IV2 grams with compliance a correspondingly high 15xl0‘6 cm/dyne.

The cartridge gave me the clean and open sound I had come to expect from a moving coil. It was the brightest of the three with extended and clear highs and full, but tight low end. The M18E goes for $195 with a replacement stylus costing $100.

After listening to these three moving coil cartridges, I’ve come to a few conclusions. The design seems to yield what their designers and audio-philes have claimed for them. They have superb transient response and deliver a more open and better defined sound. The difference in sound between a moving magnet cartridge and a moving coil is similar to the sound difference if you were to A/B a conventional cone speaker and an electrostatic.

The new designs that have eliminated the need for a transformer, allowed for user replacable styli and lowered the cost have brought a very interesting and inviting new component to our homes. While the lowest priced model in the current trio is $120, the top is under $200. With many top-of-the-line moving magnet cartridges listing at similar prices, if you’re looking for a new cartridge in this league, a moving coil is worth audition.