Heed ZENE

low-output MC cartridge

In spite of our recent foray into the digital domain, we have not lost sight of vinyl, our
all-time favorite source for music reproduction. After all, some of our leading products, like the Orbit power supplies and the Questar & Quasar phono stages, were designed to facilitate high quality vinyl replay, and we continue to maintain emphatically that any decent vinyl rig can give the vast majority of digital players a run for the money.

Accordingly, our latest product is dedicated to vinyl reply once again. Designed and hand-crafted to our own exacting specifications by BENZ in Switzerland, the ZENE is a highly sophisticated low-output moving-coil cartridge with performance well beyond its price category. It is equipped with the newest Fritz-Geiger-S-type stylus, precision bonded to a 5.5mm solid boron cantilever. It also includes the improved pole piece featuring a machined insert for the O-ring damper, resulting in greater mechanical linearity in its suspension. Trackability is truly excellent, even with a rather lowish optimum tracking force of 1.7 mN. A "real world" output voltage of 0.4 mV and an internal impedance of 12 ohm make the ZENE universally suitable for most MC phono stages – our top-of-the-line 2-box Quasar phono stage with 220µV/470Ohm jumper setting represents an optimal match for extracting the ZENE's inherent musicality – and can be used with a wide range of turntables and tonearms from lower-mid to high-end models. We have successfully used it in various Rega, Raven, Nottingham Analogue and Thorens models, but it excels even in high-end setups featuring a Roksan Xerxes 20 and Linn LP12 record decks.

By the way, 'zene' simply means 'music' in Hungarian....