Transfiguration cartridges are masters of natural musicality. The exclusive patented yokeless ring-magnet generator construction places the moving coil at the focal point of the magnetic flux field leading to a new level of focus and natural resolution due to the reduction of phase errors generated by the magnet-with-pole-pieces construction of other cartridges.

The Transfiguration Orpheus is a new generation yokeless moving coil cartridge whose incredible sonic capabilities make significant contribution to the state-of-the-art in analog recording reproduction.

Additional Resources

• Read more source component reviews from HomeTheaterReview.com
• Discuss source components at HomeTheaterSpot.com
• Explore source components at AudiophileReview.com

Many LP lovers would consider the golden age of recorded music to be the 1950's - 1970's. This was when recording companies could afford long-term contracts with the leading artists and groups, afford the time for extensive rehearsals and trial recording sessions, indulged in little or no complex multi-channel mixing (which so often distorts natural musical timbres and perspectives and causes phasing distortions) and took a real pride in producing premium quality pressings.

The moving coil cartridge has become to be accepted internationally as the ultimate transducer of these and other fine analog recordings. However, despite increasingly sophisticated cartridges being developed there remains a number of aspects that place a ceiling on the quality of the reproduction: the prime cause being the yokes and pole-pieces of the magnet, which focus the field around the coil.

The yoke system is unable to focus the full power of the magnet into the coil affecting both the strength and the accuracy of the signal. The resulting distortion inherent in most moving coil designs shows as a high frequency rise, ringing and a high level of both distortion and tracking distortion.

There is also a masking of the frequency response, especially in the high range. The inter-relationship of magnetic field and coils is simply too "loose". The magnet and coils are too far apart to be able to capture the very subtlest details. On the other hand, very dynamic passages tend to cause coil saturation, especially if the coils are wound on formers. Increasingly powerful magnets, or special coils, bodies and suspensions, are in themselves no solution.

"Accuracy" defines precisely the ability of a cartridge to recreate the original recorded sound. Greater accuracy provides more of the music - the direct sound, and the myriad of recording environment subtleties that are the intimate detail. Ultimately, a more musical sound. Indeed, it seemed the ultimate moving coil design was already with us. Only to be continuously re-refined.

Design concept

Now, in these final days of the glories of analog, there is a whole new frontier to the music of recorded music. A new concept, a single assembly that replaces the vast and costly magnets, the magnetic-field-dispersing yokes and the coils suffering from variable magnetic influences that typify all other moving coil designs.

No yokes

Coils inside the magnet

No magnetic irregularities

Coils at the crux of magnetic focus

Intimate coil/magnet coupling

Low internal impedance

High output

Elegantly simple body design