Головки звукоснимателя — Clearaudio N1

The N1 is a moving-magnet phono cartridge from Clearaudio, the German analogue specialist founded in 1978, and it opens the company's cartridge range, which extends up to the Diamond Jubilee moving-coil design. The letter N stands for Needle. Clearaudio announced the N1 on 15 May 2025 and put it on sale in July 2025 at EUR 99, with a replacement stylus at EUR 39. Unlike most cartridges at this price, its body is milled from aluminium rather than moulded in plastic.

Key specs that matter

Output voltage is 3.3 mV at 1 kHz and 5 cm/s. Frequency response covers 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and channel separation is 20 dB at 1 kHz. The recommended tracking force is 2.2 g ±0.3 g. Coil impedance is 0.66 kOhm, and the cartridge is designed for a load of 47 kOhm and 100 pF. The stylus is an elliptical diamond on an aluminium cantilever. The body is anodised aluminium in black or silver, and the cartridge weighs 8 g.

Engineering and use context

An aluminium body is stiffer than a plastic one and has lower internal resonance, so less energy from the stylus movement is stored and released by the housing. The rigid body also transfers vibration more directly into the tonearm headshell, where it can be dissipated. The elliptical stylus has a narrower contact radius across the groove than a conical tip, which allows it to follow smaller groove modulations while keeping costs low. The aluminium cantilever is light and stiff, carrying stylus movement to the magnet at its rear end. In a moving-magnet cartridge the magnet moves with the stylus and induces a signal in fixed coils within the body, so the output is high enough for a standard MM phono input. The quick-swap stylus system allows the stylus assembly to be pulled off and replaced while the cartridge body remains mounted in the tonearm, so alignment and tracking force settings are preserved when a worn stylus is changed. A replacement stylus costs less than half the price of the complete cartridge.

Pairing

With its high output and standard load, the N1 works with any standard moving-magnet phono stage, including those built into integrated amplifiers and turntables. Its weight and tracking force suit medium-mass tonearms found on entry and mid-level turntables, including Clearaudio's own Concept and other belt-drive decks. The total capacitance of tonearm cable and phono input should stay close to the specified load capacitance.

Alternatives

The Clearaudio Concept MM is the brand's established moving-magnet cartridge positioned above the N1.