Soundsmith "The Voice"?

Bump. Inquiring minds want to know.

There is a stereomojo review recently posted. It's an admirable performer. I am fascintaed by the design but it is not compatible with my phono stage. Frank Shroeder was so taken by the design that he built a special low mass bamboo arm for its unusually high compliance.

One of the best cartridges in the world!! It sounds like music, not hi-fi. Very highly recommended when compared to the DRT, the Goldfinger, and the Titan, with a smoother more tape like sound.

The cartridge needs a very low friction tonearm, no 10 year old Regas need sign up.

HW

What arms work well with The Voice?

There are two versions, I believe, one with a 22 um/mN medium compliance and one with 28 um/mN high compliance.

William,
We are using it on my turntable with a Schroeder tonearm that has a heavier wand than Frank's special one, but the particular cartridge was built to match. So far, it is very promising...so much so that we intend to leave it there for the RMAF show in Denver. It is a very, very nice.

err...It is a very, very nice cartridge.

Mosin,

Thanks. What do you mean "the particular cartridge was built to match". Do you mean that you have the medium compliance version of The Voice?

William,

I really don't know the answer to the question, except to say that Peter Lederman has personally seen the tonearm on my turntable, and he responded accordingly. I wish I knew more, but right now, I don't. The reason I don't is because the turntable I built is a prototype, but not my property, so it is not in my possession. Confusing, no? Anyway, I'll ask about the match because it is an interesting question. I am of the opinion that the arm was made with a higher effective mass, however.

Caveat: If I am mistaken, it won't be the first time!

I'm using The Voice ebony on my Pro-ject RM10 TT with 10" carbon fiber arm. Peter thought that the high-compliance version would be the best match for my arm and I think he's right, based on about 12-hours of listening. The Voice replaces a HOMC Sumiko Blackbird. It's loaded at 47,000 ohm, into the MM gain of my Rowland.

I've never heard a cartridge sound so good right out of the box. The bass is digital-like in its solidity and lack of bloat. The cartridge is "fast" without the highs being etched or bright. The mids are detailed, rich and enveloping. Imaging is solid.

Tracking at 1 gram I heard occasional mistracking on hot sibilants (think Eva Cassidy), but with Ledermann's approval I moved up to 1.1 gram and disconnected the anti-skate totally. Now, I'm having no problems with music.

A friend has the same cartridge in a Linn Itok arm. They both poop out at about 25-seconds on the Telarc Omnidisc test record. That's "ok", but nothing special at all, but Peter says that to improve tracking would hurt the sound.

I'll report and maybe add a full review after I get about 50-hours on the cartridge. Peter says that it'll improve some, but not a ton, but it's already spectacular.

Sorry, but I've never had any of the highly touted LOMCs in my rig. I've listened to them in other rigs. This is one of the very best sounding cartridges that I've heard.

Dave

Hi again,

We played the cartridge in out room at RMAF, and I thought it was a stellar performer, especially at the price point. It was a medium compliance version, and it had the speed of a fine moving coil with a tonal balance that was very natural. It is quite amazing for a moving iron cartridge. I like it a lot.

I recently purchased a Voice cartridge. Have about 30 hours on it. My music is exclusively classical with an emphasis on voices and early music on original instruments. I have been collecting for 50 years and some of my Lp's are that old. I've never gone onto the crazy priced cartridges but I do have a good analog system with a Set amp. The Voice is, without doubt the finest sounding cartridge I've ever owned. I've discovered subtle sounds that I ever knew existed. A real winner. Mounted on a SME V tone arm A little tricky to set up but Peter of Soundsmith was most helpful.

Dear Caspermao: I have the opportunity to heard/test that cartridge in my system.

No I don't buy it it comes from a friend that want to compare it against the B&O MMC2 ( where those Sounsmith cartridges suppose to comes. ) that I own. We dont' have a very long listening due that we " play " with different tonearms and in different TTs.

A long short history: it is a very good performer I can say a top performer. I don't have any trouble with it regarding tracking at 1gr., I loaded at 100K ( due that my other MM type cartridges are loaded at that impedadnce ) to make the comparison and I mounted on medium and high mass tonearms with out trouble as my B&O one.

Certainly very good contender against the top LOMC cartridges. If you can please take a look about here:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1200430667

Fortunately for all of us today there are a " low " price cartridges ( MM type ) qith top performance and the Sounsmith is one of those examples along Nagaoka-Ortofon-Grado-Clearaudio-etc-etc.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Maybe the new Well Tempered Amadeus golf-ball tonearm is the perfect fit? If we add the new Vandersteen 7, Magico M5, Martin Logan CLX, etc, these are good times for high-end audio, recession, MP3, downloading and all!

Starer, would you care to tell us what other cartridges you have used in your present system, so we know what you are comparing to the Voice? Thanks. I'm interested too.