Pickup Soundsmith Otello *Såld*

Otello ES, Soundsmith’s most affordable moving-iron phono cartridge, is entry-level in description and price only. Offering exceptional tone and resolution, Otello ES handles every type of music with wondrous ease and sit-up-and-take-notice naturalism. Slightly warmer-sounding that the company’s other models, the hand-built fixed-coil design plays vinyl LPs with stellar richness, arresting speed, and wowing dynamics. Its presentation will bowl you over by way of its beauty, soundstaging, and clarity – feats that definitely do not come easily for under-$1k cartridges let alone models that cost under $500. We’re not exaggerating when we say this is one special analog component – particularly since it can be rebuilt for a fraction of its original MSRP and sports a new function-first architecture.

Visually defined by a new, sleek body that resists the uncontrolled vibrations of traditional ”boxy” cartridges, Otello ES features a significant evolution of Soundsmith’s DEMS (Dynamic Energy Management System). ES cartridges direct internal vibrational forces without reflection and disperse them properly to the tonearm. Such absence of reflections enables the stylus to stay in far greater statistical contact with the groove walls, leading to increased liquidity, reduced ”grain,” and preservation of valuable detail. Azimuth adjustment is also built into each model, along with the option for electrical isolation for hum-prone systems.

A moving-iron cartridge has both the magnets and the coils fixed in place. A very low-mass and extremely precisely wound iron cross is affixed to the cantilever/stylus assembly and placed between the magnets and coils. As the iron cross moves in the magnetic field, it generates signal voltage. Since only the iron cross moves, more coil windings (higher output) and heavier magnets (more powerful) may be used without penalty. Other advantages to MI designs are very low moving mass (greater resolution) and superior channel separation (better imaging).