Головки звукоснимателя — Clearaudio Performer V2

The Performer V2 is a moving-magnet cartridge made by Clearaudio in Erlangen, Germany, and belongs to the company's MM-V2 series. In that series every model except the Concept V2, which has an aluminium housing, is built in a hand-polished ebony body. Clearaudio describes the V2 approach as ebony used as a low-resonance base, combined with the lowest practical moving mass, HD grinding of the stylus and damping inside the cartridge.

Key specs that matter

Nominal output is about 3.3 mV at 1 kHz and 5 cm/s, and the frequency response runs from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The factory gives 20 dB of channel separation and a channel balance of 1.5 dB, both measured at 1 kHz. Tracking ability is 80 µm, and the stated tracking force is 2.2 g with a tolerance of 0.3 g either way. Coil impedance at 1 kHz is 0.66 kOhm and coil inductance 400 mH. An elliptical diamond sits on an aluminium cantilever, compliance is listed as 15 µ/mN, and the whole system weighs 8.4 g, give or take 0.4 g. Clearaudio covers the Performer V2 with a two-year warranty when the registration card goes back within 14 days of purchase.

Engineering and use context

In a moving-magnet design the small magnet travels with the cantilever while the coils stay fixed in the body, which is why the Performer V2 reaches a signal level that a standard MM input can take without a step-up device. Clearaudio measures, analyses and selects each of these cartridges by hand in four planes, with the stated aim of matching the two stereo channels and keeping phase and transient errors low. The ebony housing was chosen because the wood is light and does not ring easily, so less of the vibration picked up by the stylus is stored in the body and fed back into the generator. The elliptical tip has a narrower contact line across the groove than a spherical one, and it sits on a light aluminium cantilever that carries the tip movement back to the magnet. Its coil impedance, inductance and recommended load are identical to those of the other ebony MM-V2 models, so the choice between them rests on stylus, cantilever and channel figures.

Pairing

The electrical match is a plain MM phono input set to 47 kOhm with a total capacitance of about 100 pF, counting both the tonearm lead and the stage itself. Clearaudio says the MM-V2 models work on all common tonearms, and the 8.4 g mass together with moderate compliance points to arms of medium effective mass rather than very light designs.

Alternatives

The Clearaudio Artist V2 uses the same ebony body and aluminium cantilever but is rated at about 3.6 mV output and 24 dB of channel separation.