New Reference MC Cart from Charisma Audio

Charisma Audio's founder, Bernard Li, told StereoNET:

After more than 40 years’ experience in audio, we collected some solid ideas to inspire the design and manufacture of phono cartridges using premium materials. They not only look attractive but also have striking performance.

Not a lot is known about the origin of the Charisma Audio cartridges (many of the world's cart's come from just a few artisans), and founder Li still remains tight-lipped on this. Li has been setting up turntables and developing analog products since the mid-70's. The Reference Two MC Phono Cartridge has been years in the making and is now the Charisma Audio statement cartridge.

Specifications

• Cartridge Weight: 7.1 g
• Cartridge Body: bocote wood
• Cantilever: ruby
• Stylus: super fine line contact nude diamond
• Vertical Tracking Angle: 20 degrees
• Coil: special iron crossed-coil with extremely high purity and ultra fine single crystal copper
• Output Voltage: 0.38 mV at 3.54 cm/sec.
• Internal Impedance: 12 ohms
• Frequency Response: 20 – 25,000 Hz ± 1 dB
• Channel Balance: better than 0.5 dB
• Channel Separation: better than 30 dB
• Dynamic Compliance: 15 um/mN
• Recommended Loading: 100 – 1,000 ohms
• Recommended Tracking Force: 2.0 g ± 0.1 g
• Tracking Ability at 315 Hz / 2 g: 80 uM
• Recommended Tonearm Mass: medium
• Break-in Period: 50 hours

The Charisma Audio Reference Two MC Cartridge is available in October 2015 for $3,990 RRP.

Charisma Audio is distributed in Australia by Absolute Hi End.