What’s Special About Miyajima Cartridges?

We are completely bowled over by the Miyajima cartridges and so are our customers.  Anyone who has not heard one might be wondering what all the fuss is about – after all, these appear to be fairly normal, artisan Japanese cartridges.

Miyajima cartridges are designed differently, compared to pretty much every other moving coil cartridge out there.  Let’s start by talking about traditional designs – traditional moving coil designs have the coil assembly fixed to the rear of the cantilever, and a high-tension steel wire, fixed to the back end of that assembly, pulls it tightly onto a rubbery ‘doughnut’ that is pretty much the cartridge’s suapension .  The steel wire is known as the ‘tie wire’ and must be tensioned perfectly, otherwise the cantilever may sag, or not move correctly if too tight.  The coil assembly in a traditional moving coil design is typically wound on an iron cross former, to increase magnetic flux.

Miyajima moving coil cartridges are different.  Instead of pulling the cantilever and coil former onto the compliant ‘doughnut’ with a tie wire, Miyajima place the compliant ‘doughnut’ in front of the coil former and hold it in place with the fine point of a threaded ‘side bar’.  The point is located very exactly in the centre of the coil yoke, at its natural pivot point.  So, there is no tie wire, and the slide bar can be adjusted very precisely so that the coil/cantilever assembly is held at the correct force against the doughnut.  The last difference concerns the coil former, which in Miyajima’s case is non-magnetic, and wound in a different way that they call the ‘cross ring’.

Why does this make a difference?  Well, Miyajima claim that conventional moving coil cartridges suffer from a number of distortion mechanisms that have been eliminated in Miyajima designs.  Firstly, that tie-wire is a source of resonance – it is a tensioned wire so it behaves just like a violin string.  Miyajima’s slide bar does not resonate.  Next, in the conventional design, the coil assembly does not pivot naturally in the field of the cartridge’s magnet – rather, it tilts from edge to edge, stretching the tie wire as it tilts.  So, this changes the action of lines of magnetic flux, as the coils tilt.  In Miyajima cartridges, the coils pivot naturally in the magnetic field, so the generator is more linear.  Lastly, an iron coil former may be good for increasing electrical output, but as it moves in the magnetic field, it in itself creates changes to the magnetic filed, which then feed back into the electrical output as distortion.

All of this is much easier to see in this quaint animation produced by Miyajima:

So, are Miyajima’s claims for low distortion borne out in practice?  Oh yes, very much so.  Their clean top end is remarkable, and all the cartridges deliver a refined sound that makes many other MC designs sound like CD.  On first listening, it’s easy to think that the lack of top end distortion is due to their being ‘rolled off’ but that’s not the case – everything is there, but without the tizz that you get from other designs and which is often perceived as sharp detail.  Miyajima cartridges are effortlessly musical, too.  All Miyajima cartridges are low compliance designs so you do need a tonearm of medium-high mass to hear them at their best, but otherwise they are undemanding in terms of loading etc.

If you want to hear what your records are capable of serving up, whether in stereo or mono. we recommend trying out the Miyajima range.  We are the only UK dealer to offer a home demonstration scheme, so you can try certain models at home.  Details of the scheme are here https://ammonite-audio.co.uk/miyajima-cartridge-home-loan-scheme/ so please get in touch to discuss a loan.