Soundsmith The Voice Cartridge

Choosing the Soundsmith The Voice High-Output HiFi Turntable Cartridge

What sets the Soundsmith The Voice High-Output HiFi Turntable Cartridge apart from other high-output designs?

The Soundsmith The Voice High-Output HiFi Turntable Cartridge is a Fixed Coil, moving iron cartridge built around a single crystal ruby cantilever and a nude diamond Line Contact stylus. Soundsmith engineered the cartridge around a low moving mass, using a specialised metallurgy for the moving iron system to keep the effective tip mass down to 0.30mg. A lighter moving assembly tracks the groove modulations more accurately, because there's less inertia for the stylus to overcome as it follows rapid changes in the groove wall. The Fixed Coil architecture also limits the amount of electromagnetic energy reflected back into the record from the cartridge's own coils, which Soundsmith identifies as a major contributor to stylus jitter in conventional moving coil and moving magnet designs. Reducing that reflected energy is what allows The Voice to combine a high output voltage with the tracking precision usually associated with lower-output, lower-mass cartridges.

Which tonearms and turntables suit the Soundsmith The Voice cartridge?

The Soundsmith The Voice cartridge fits a standard half-inch mount, so it's compatible with the great majority of tonearms used on contemporary and vintage turntables without an adaptor. Its medium compliance of 22 µm/mN works best with tonearms of medium effective mass, where the combined resonance of arm and cartridge falls within the usual 8-12Hz range for stable tracking. Pairing a medium compliance cartridge with a very low mass or very high mass tonearm pushes that resonance outside the ideal window, so it's worth checking the tonearm's effective mass against this figure before fitting The Voice. A high output voltage of greater than 2.12mV at 5cm/sec also means the cartridge suits any standard moving magnet phono input, removing the need for a dedicated moving coil stage or external step-up transformer.

What phono preamp settings does the cartridge need?

This cartridge needs a phono stage with a load resistance of 47kΩ or higher and a gain stage offering between 38dB and 44dB. Soundsmith doesn't specify a recommended load capacitance for The Voice, so existing capacitance settings on a standard moving magnet input can typically be left as supplied. The coil inductance of 190mH per channel and DC resistance of 680Ω are both consistent with moving magnet-style loading, which is why the cartridge integrates with existing moving magnet phono stages rather than requiring specialist moving coil circuitry.

How should you set up tracking force and alignment?

Setup of the Soundsmith The Voice cartridge calls for a tracking force between 1.3g and 1.6g, with Soundsmith citing 1.3-1.6g as the standard range for this medium compliance design. Staying within that window keeps the stylus seated correctly in the groove without adding unnecessary downforce that could accelerate wear on either the stylus or the record. The Optimised Contour Line Contact stylus profile also benefits from accurate azimuth and anti-skate alignment during installation, since its larger contact area with the groove wall is more sensitive to misalignment than a simpler conical or elliptical stylus shape.

Who is the Soundsmith The Voice High-Output HiFi Turntable Cartridge designed for?

The Soundsmith The Voice High-Output HiFi Turntable Cartridge is designed for vinyl collectors who want moving coil-level tracking performance without moving away from a high-output, moving magnet-compatible signal chain. It suits owners upgrading an existing turntable and phono stage who don't want to invest in a separate step-up transformer or moving coil phono input, while still wanting the lower distortion that comes from a low mass moving assembly. Soundsmith hand-builds each cartridge under the direction of company president and chief engineer Peter Ledermann at the firm's Peekskill, New York factory, and The Voice has been in continuous production since 2009.

Why does the stylus profile matter for record wear and playback accuracy?

The stylus fitted to The Voice is a nude diamond, Optimised Contour Line Contact design measuring 0.10mm square at the point of contact. Its profile is shaped similarly to the cutting stylus used to master vinyl records in the first place, which lets it follow the same contour the groove was originally cut with rather than approximating it the way a conical or elliptical stylus does. That closer match to the groove shape gives the stylus a larger, more consistent contact area with the vinyl, spreading playback force over more surface area and maintaining steady contact through high-frequency passages where a smaller stylus tip is more likely to lose contact momentarily. The cartridge's frequency response of 20Hz to 20,000Hz, within ±2.5dB, channel separation exceeding 30dB at 1,000Hz, and channel difference below 1.0dB all reflect the tracking stability that this stylus geometry and the low moving mass work together to deliver.

What are the cantilever and coil construction made from?

The cantilever on The Voice is machined from single crystal ruby, a rigid, low-mass material that resists flexing under stylus movement and so transmits groove information to the coil assembly with minimal energy loss. This pairs with Soundsmith's Fixed Coil construction, where the coils remain stationary rather than moving with the cantilever, which is what limits the noise reflected back into the record surface during playback. At 9.20g, the cartridge body adds a moderate amount of mass to the tonearm assembly, a figure worth checking against a tonearm's specified compatible cartridge weight range when fitting The Voice. The Voice carries a 24-month warranty, and as with all Soundsmith cartridges it's made in the USA.

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