Reference RUBY Cartridge

Initially we did like many other audio companies that offer cartridges and approached a known cartridge manufacturer to supply one of their designs, perhaps embellished with a different looking cover. After some unsatisfactory tests we realised this simply was not the AVID way; all our products are designed and manufactured in house following our own philosophy so why should this be different.

As with every other product segment we have introduced, we always set out to design the best and then scale down to other price classes.

So started our journey, first examining the mechanics of the cartridge and utilising our expertise in vibration control and transmission. The cartridge itself creates a huge amount of vibration which enters both the cartridge body and the vinyl record. It is the latter vibrations within the record itself and its transfer away that started the company with the Acutus turntable design.

We found many parts of the cartridge where vibrating uncontrolled, especially in open body designs, with other designs using different body materials to try and damp or tailor the sound. So, we designed our own body and yokes which rigidly hold the sensitive elements in place and offering a path of least resistance, which the vibration can pass into the pickup arm. We deal with issues at source and not after the fact.

From then it was the task of evaluating every single mechanical element. Different stylus profiles, cantilever material, magnets, coils, absolutely every single component part. Finally, we reached a design, but we didn’t stop there. Our phonostages have a higher than usual gain level as we believe, especially with low output cartridges, the closer to the source gain is applied the less chance the signal is corrupted. As we had opted for a Moving coil design, we had the opportunity to reduce the number of coil windings, thereby reducing the moving mass, making for more accurate groove tracing and faithful dynamics. During this period, we also altered the stylus tip to further reduce groove noise.

The reduction in coil windings resulted in an output of 0.15mV, which was not an issue, however to make the cartridge more widely accepted we increased the magnet size to offer a health 0.32mV output, this not undoing the advantage of lower coil mass. Our first cartridge was finished.

In a world of super expensive esoteric pickup cartridges, AVID’s Reference Ruby is not inexpensive but nowhere near inaccessible. But regardless of cost we’ve not design to be second best and this cartridge will sit happily on the turntables and offer new insight to your record collection.

Specifications