The X-series of halls in the Austria Center Vienna are startlingly similar to the setup back at the Munich Order Center, the previous High End venue. For large swaths of these huge halls, it’s a little bit like a farmer’s market—lots of small stalls about 10′ × 10′ in size, all with static displays. There’s no way to demonstrate equipment, as that would create one giant conglomeration of noise.
So the temptation is strong to breeze through this area, paying little attention to the vendors of bare wire, speaker terminals, record weights, and reel-to-reel tapes.
But you ignore these exhibits at your peril.
Doug and I make certain to run a grid pattern through these halls so that we don’t miss anything. This year it paid off bigtime. A small, sparsely provisioned booth caught my eye, its one display case containing six or so phono cartridges neatly arranged atop their respective boxes. I stopped for a quick look, and the representative caught sight of my badge, my name, and my SoundStage! credentials. He came over, introduced himself, and that is how I met Aaron Leung of Skyanalog. “I’ve read many of your articles,” Leung said. “In fact, we are the OEM manufacturers for some of the cartridges you reviewed.”
“Oh really!” I responded. “Thanks for reading. Out of interest, which cartridges are you responsible for?”
Leung gave a wry smile and said, “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that.” Fair enough, business is business.
The banner behind Leung caught my eye. “So you make a cartridge with a diamond cantilever? That’s interesting stuff.”
“More than that,” Leung qualified. “With our new 3D Ref cartridge, we are the first manufacturer to use a diamond armature in a phono cartridge.”
The armature is the part at the very back of the cantilever, the assembly to which the coils are attached. Most armatures are made of a high-permeability magnetic metal alloy, although some higher-end moving-coil cartridges employ non-magnetic armatures made of synthetic ruby or sapphire, or ceramic, to eliminate magnetic resistance in pursuit of a faster, more neutral sound. It would seem that Skyanalog is stepping up the game by using diamond for this task.
According to Skyanalog’s literature, their diamond armature provides an ultra-low moving mass and helps control resonances. And the diamond cantilever and diamond armature combine to form an extremely rigid structure. The 3D Ref retails for €8899.
As of this writing, I don’t have any further details on the 3D Ref, but I’m talking with Leung about getting a review sample.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
