Sumiko

To celebrate its upcoming 40th anniversary, Sumiko has revamped and upgraded two of its moving coil phono cartridges. Welcome the Celebration 40 at $2799 and the Bluepoint No. 3 at $499.

The Celebration 40 is an upgrade to the Pearwood Celebration II. The Celebration 40 now uses the same solid, ultra-low-mass Microridge stylus as their flagship Palo Santos Presentation cartridge. Adding the Microridge stylus is revelatory when it comes to micro-detail & spatiality. The Microridge's trackability is matched by few others. It holds the groove unyieldingly, and tracking is, thus, impeccable, portraying music in a manner that's entirely coherent. Musicality, emotion, bass depth and slam, and mid/high-frequency sweetness are what you will experience like never before.

Sumiko selected the gorgeous plumwood body for its musical resonance characteristics. It allows music's natural warmth to come through and invites you in to partake, reminiscent of the charm evoked by tube audio gear.

To ensure accuracy in the cartridge mounting and alignment process, the company modified the front face of the plumwood housing, clearing the sightline so one can view the entire cantilever during setup.

They've also taken the practically legendary Bluepoint No. 2 to a whole new level, releasing the new version as the Bluepoint No. 3 at $499. By redesigning the cartridge's housing and improving the electrical generator's mounting, they were able to reduce significantly the system's internal vibrations, yielding greater clarity and a smoother overall tonal balance. This redesign also adds threaded inserts in the cartridge body and improves visibility of the stylus tip, both of which make mounting simpler and more precise. A protective stylus guard is also provided.

The Blue Point Number 3 is now available in both high-output and low-output versions. The high-output can be used with any moving magnet phono stage, while the low-output model is perfect for any quality phono stage that supports low-output moving coils.