Cartridges — Miyajima-Lab Carbon stereo

The Carbon is a stereo moving-coil cartridge from Miyajima Laboratory of Japan, a maker that builds its cartridges with wooden bodies and in-house cantilever designs. Announced in 2022, it takes the balance of the company's Takumi model as its starting point but swaps to a line-contact stylus to extend the frequency response. The body is a satin-finished hardwood, and in the maker's range the model sits between the Shilabe and the Kansui.

Key specs that matter

Output is about 0.21 mV and internal impedance about 16 ohm, which places it among low-output moving-coil designs. The nude line-contact diamond stylus tracks at a recommended 2.3 g. Frequency range runs from 20 Hz to 32 kHz at -3 dB. Compliance is around 9 x 10-6 cm/dyne measured at 10 Hz, a moderate figure for a moving-coil cartridge. The cartridge weighs about 8.9 g and measures 18.8 mm wide and 21.9 mm deep without its terminals. The recommended load is above 100 ohm.

Engineering and use context

The name comes from the cantilever, into which carbon nanofibers are inserted. Miyajima keeps the thin cantilever approach used on the Takumi and relies on the carbon filling to raise stiffness and control the natural resonance of the part without making it thicker. The line-contact profile has a longer and narrower footprint in the groove than an elliptical tip, and it is this stylus change that separates the Carbon from the Takumi in the maker's own description. Like the rest of the Miyajima range, the body is wood rather than metal or plastic, and each model in the catalogue uses a different species or finish - the Takumi uses African Blackwood, the Saboten lignum vitae and the Carbon a satin hardwood. Its mass keeps it well below the heaviest cartridge in the range, the 13.3 g Destiny. Other models in the catalogue explore cantilever materials further, such as the Saboten with a cactus spine cantilever and the Madake with Japanese bamboo.

Pairing

The low output calls for a high-gain MC phono preamp or a transformer, and the low internal impedance makes a transformer a practical choice. A load above the maker's minimum on an active stage matches the maker's guidance. The tonearm must be able to set the fairly high tracking force with some margin.

Alternatives

The Miyajima Takumi is the stereo moving-coil model the Carbon was derived from, fitted with a line-contact stylus in an African Blackwood body and tracking at the same force.