I’ve owned a record player since I was 13 years old—1976, if I remember correctly. That record player became a turntable about four years later, with my acquisition of a Technics SL-B2 standalone deck. The Technics begat a Rega, and the Rega begat a Roksan. From Roksan to Pro-Ject, then from Pro-Ject to VPI, we arrive at the present.
Cartridges are like brake pads—they’re wear items. As such, I’ve owned numerous replacement cartridges from numerous brands over the years.
But never a Goldring cartridge. I’m an English lad, so I should have known better. Goldring has been in business for over 100 years, operating as a family-owned concern for nearly all of that time. Originally formed as Gebrüder Scharf in Germany in 1906, the company moved to England in 1933 and re-named itself Goldring Manufacturing (GB) Ltd. in 1953.
I found an interesting snippet of company lore on Goldring’s website detailing some of the goings-on during WWII: “The Scharf Bros perfected the model 100 magnetic pick-up cartridge and the versatile Headmaster tone arm at a new factory in Dalston, East London—after the original factory was destroyed by a V-1 flying bomb.”
Over its history, Goldring’s product lineage followed the course of vinyl reproduction’s development, often leading the way with new and refined technologies—from gramophone needles through ceramic pickups into moving magnets and the expanded world of stereo. Moving-coil cartridges entered Goldring’s lineup in the 1980s.
Despite the giant hammer that was the CD, Goldring continued to manufacture and refine its cartridges through the ’90s, although the downward pressure of the digital boom necessitated some outsourcing. Still, Goldring soldiered on, remaining in the UK and moving its factory to an economically more viable location back in 2009.
How have I—with my English heritage—spent nearly 50 years listening to records without trying a Goldring cartridge? The rectification of this oversight came by way of Thom Moon’s review of the Goldring E4 moving-magnet cartridge. Thom was delighted with the performance of the E4, and I took note of his enthusiasm. Doug Schneider reached out to Nick Renshaw, PR manager for Goldring’s parent company, Armour Home—whose other brands include Q Acoustics speakers and QED cables—and arranged for me to receive a sample of Goldring’s top-of-the-line moving-coil cartridge, the Ethos SE (US$1999, CA$2899, £1299, €1599).
Keep calm and rock on
The Ethos SE is a refinement of the Ethos, which is built around a neodymium magnet and the company’s cross-shaped armature. The aluminum-alloy cantilever is tipped with a vital-shanked line-contact stylus, and the motor is housed in an aircraft-aluminum chassis. The suspension is made from a bespoke butyl-rubber compound.
Goldring describes its moving-coil motor as a “GOL-1 Generator,” which is the same basic design the company has been using since LPs became a thing. Here’s how this feature is explained on Goldring’s website: “The GOL-1 ensures a smooth and extended frequency response. It’s still handmade by Goldring, and here it is presented as an example of the company’s ongoing dedication to refinement of every aspect of its design and assembly. Exclusively for the SE version, the pole shoes have been subjected to a new process, which enhances the permeability of the metal, creating a lower reluctance magnetic circuit.”
The SE version ups the Ethos’s game further with a black anodized finish and pure-silver-coil wire. The coils are wound with fewer turns, which lowers the output a touch, but also reduces mass for better tracking and quicker response.
The SE’s stated output of 0.35mV is on the lowish side, which means it requires a decent chunk of gain from the phono stage. Static compliance is fairly high at 28mm/N, suggesting that the Ethos SE will work best in a low-mass arm. I mention this here because I made a rookie mistake and initially mounted the Ethos SE in the European Audio Team F-Note arm, which is a high-mass design, and it didn’t sound anywhere near correct. Moving the cartridge over to my VPI Prime Signature and its much-lower-mass Fatboy Gimbal 9-3D arm made things right.
Packaging is elegant and recyclable, of the box-within-a-box format. Installation was simple. The Ethos SE has a stylus guard, and the mounting holes are threaded. These two conveniences remove 95% of the stress from the process. With its tidy, compact body, the Ethos SE provides clear and unobstructed views of the cantilever, which makes alignment a breeze.
When the inevitable happens and the Ethos SE reaches the end of its life, Goldring offers an exchange program where you can purchase a new replacement Ethos SE for US$1199, CA$1749, £779, or €959.
The Ethos SE was quite sensitive to vertical tracking force. I ended up at 1.78g, which resulted in the best tradeoff between treble extension and bass weight. Oddly enough, if I jacked the VTF up much beyond 1.8g, the highs became tizzy and out of control, which is the opposite of my past experiences. Still, Goldring recommends 1.75g, so there you go. The Ethos SE weighs in at a reasonable 7.7g, which should be manageable for most arms.
This English cartridge is remarkably silent in the groove. Sub-optimal records didn’t make me feel the need to give them a wash—I could listen through the noise, given that it was at a fairly low level.
My time with the Ethos SE overlapped with the Mola Mola Lupe phono stage, which you’ll read about shortly. The Ethos SE also drove my own Aqvox Phono 2 CI. The Aqvox is a current-drive design, so it doesn’t require changes for varying cartridge impedance. I set the Mola Mola at 100 ohms, and it seemed to like that very much. Since both the Mola Mola and the Aqvox feature balanced inputs, I ran my Nordost Frey RCA-to-XLR cable into both phono stages.
Smooth operator in a satin nightdress
Over the past few years, I’ve made much fuss about my enthusiasm for DS Audio’s optical cartridges and their snappy, dynamic sound. I’m tempted to describe that infatuation as an “optical cartridge holiday,” where I found a bright bauble that distracted me from what a magnetic cartridge does so very well.
There’s an inner light, a feeling of richness that oozes out of a really good moving-coil cartridge. There are hints of this sense of juiciness in the sound of an optical cartridge, but nowhere near the same degree as with a good MC. While it’s not entirely analogous, in some significant ways it’s like comparing solid-state to tube amplification. I’m quite confident in saying that the optical architecture is more accurate than the magnetic kind. But that’s not the whole point, is it?
I feel fairly certain that I’ll get many nods of agreement when I say that we listen to vinyl for the pleasure it delivers, not to chase accuracy. Go read a DAC review if accuracy is your lodestar. If you’re reading this review, then I suspect that you’re nodding right now.
My time with the Goldring Ethos SE reinforced and renewed my love for the magnetic cartridge.
The Ethos SE exudes refinement. If you don’t want to read all the way through, I’ll sum it up here. The Ethos SE has a pure, extended, silky top end; a rich, expressive midrange; and a tight, walloping bottom end. It’s the James Bond of cartridges.
Calexico’s Feast of Wire (Quarterstick Records QS78) is an ethereal record; it’s desert rock that conjures up images of cactuses on a flat mesa that goes on for miles. This is delicate music that plays to the heart of what the Ethos SE does so well.
The opener, “Sunken Waltz,” is a clever standalone pop song that makes me smile whenever I hear it. A gently strummed guitar weaves through the entire song. That guitar is sometimes obscured by the loosely played drums, but the Ethos SE helped the guitar snap out from among the backing instruments. It’s the midrange magic of the Goldring cartridge that really sets the tone. Joey Burns’s high tenor popped through the Ethos SE, sounding rich and textured, with a purity that burst forward out of the mix, his image moving just a bit forward of the instruments. Loping and tinged with Mexican rhythms, this entire album is a Tex-Mex fairy tale, and the Ethos SE gave the album a clean polish while still retaining its magic.
A clean polish? That’s not very clear, so I’ll expand. Swapping over to St. Vincent’s MassEducation (Lorna Vista LVR00448), we’ve got a much calmer, simpler album, but the directness of the music makes a component work overtime to get the message out. This piano-and-voice LP is wonderfully recorded, mastered, and pressed. Pick a song, any song—how about “Young Lover”? Annie Clark’s voice is way forward in the soundstage, and the Goldring portrayed her appropriately. Of note here is the way the Ethos SE reproduced the rise and fall of her voice, the modulation of her breathy, evocative singing. More than any component in recent memory, the Ethos SE made me imagine her singing with an actual microphone in front of her. I was able to visualize her voice entering the microphone and then emerging from the speakers. The transition between her rich lower notes and the sibilance on her esses drew me in, made me imagine that I was right there in the recording studio.
The Ethos SE has a delicate, almost dainty touch with sparse music such as MassEducation. This cartridge highlights the space around instruments. The piano in “Young Lover” had enormous weight—a feeling of presence—coupled with a buttery smoothness that just dripped sophistication. Evocative and clean, the Ethos SE projects a feeling of realism, exposing the underlying texture that’s present in the music. The sibilance in Clark’s voice I just mentioned? Via the Ethos SE, I could sense the actual vibrations, the frequency modulations between the fundamental and the harmonics that make up the whole. The resulting construct gives the impression of a kind of grain—a texture, but not additive. The Ethos SE seemed to deconstruct the disparate parts of a recording and reassemble them into a more fulsome whole.
When I find myself getting jaded about audiophilia, writing, and stereo stuff in general, I throw on a Rush album to clear my head. More often than not it’s Hemispheres (Mercury/Virgin EMI 4711806), specifically side 1. This album side inevitably makes me smile and refreshes me. It’s also a microcosm of everything about what makes the Ethos SE such a swell little cartridge. “Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres” is a dense track, with numerous peaks and troughs. The Ethos SE rode an endearing fine line here, keeping each instrument out of the way of the others. I can shift my mind’s focus while listening to “Hemispheres,” pulling forward the complex bass line, or pushing it back to let the drums take the front stage. Alex Lifeson’s guitar is a carrier wave, always there, but ever willing to let Geddy Lee’s bass shine or Neil Peart’s drums snap forward. The Ethos SE allowed me to play these games with ease, but it also reminded me to let the three instruments cohere and combine into an unified performance.
It’s that midrange richness, combined with a crisp, tuneful bottom end, that makes these tricks of perception work together. Lee’s Rickenbacker bass has a ton of midrange overtones, and the Ethos SE combined the fundamental low notes with that distinctive sustain into a precise image. Yes, the Ethos SE’s low end is tuneful; it’s also exceptionally rhythmic, helping to highlight the rise and fall of the music’s underlying timing. Goddamn, after the side finished, I moved the tonearm back to the start and listened through a second time. I don’t often do that.
The Ethos SE presents images as cohesive performances, rather than highlighting instruments as discrete pinpoints. These images are large—almost larger than life. The Ethos SE projects a wide, integrated soundstage, more as a whole than as a collection of scenes. Sticking with Hemispheres (please don’t judge me) but flipping the LP, I raised the volume to a point higher than I usually endure and cued up “La Villa Strangiato.” I played this track on the VPI and Goldring for my two audiophile neighbors, Ron and Rob. Ron isn’t a Rush fan, and he wasn’t familiar with “La Villa,” which is a complicated masterpiece. “Where’s the one-beat?” Ron asked in wonder. “How are they doing this? How are they keeping this time? Maybe I’m becoming a Rush fan . . .”
Closely tracking the rising and falling waves of rhythm in this track, the Ethos SE crackled with energy. The Ethos SE is extended at the top—notably so. But that top end is so well controlled that it meshes perfectly with the slightly rich midrange. There’s no way I’d consider the Ethos SE bright, but it is lively. Listening to Peart’s cymbals on “La Villa Strangiato,” I heard more of the overtones than the actual stick hitting the metal. It’s an endearing tonal balance, one that directly appeals to me. This is a dramatic track, and the Ethos SE accurately relayed all its fury.
I mentioned earlier that the Ethos SE was sensitive to VTF. The Goldring made me want to fuss with it, want to optimize it. Over my time with this cartridge, I potchkered with more settings and tweaks than I have in a whole bunch of years combined. Every change I made to the Ethos SE resulted in notable gains in sound quality. It was rare for me to change something and receive a negative result. If things did go backward, it was unusually simple to backtrack and find a way to improve again. In some ways, it seemed as if the Ethos SE was guiding me toward getting the best from it. That’s not to say that it was a fussy cartridge—far from it. The Ethos SE always sounded great, but it was exceptionally responsive to granular adjustments.
One of my first gains was swapping out my HRS ADL record weight for the much denser weight supplied with the EAT Forte S turntable. The added mass dramatically tightened up the bottom end. Another surprise came when I needed to use the IsoAcoustics Delos isolation platform to support the Marantz Model 10 integrated amplifier (review forthcoming). I slipped the Mitmat Foundation under the VPI Prime Signature by way of replacement and was surprised to hear the imaging firm up. The Delos performed much better than the Foundation when running the DS Audio DS 003 cartridge, and I’d expected this setup to be the best, regardless of the cartridge. Vinyl playback continues to spin me around—color me surprised.
What’s going on next door
I still have the European Audio Team Jo N°8 cartridge on hand, and it’s a near-as-dammit competitor to the Ethos SE. The guts of these two cartridges are wildly different. The Jo N°8 features a boron cantilever tipped with a Shibata stylus, and the coils are wound with copper wire, but the price isn’t that far off from the Ethos SE. At US$2299, the Jo N°8 is slightly more expensive, but not so much as to rule it out as an option.
The Jo N°8 is a meatier cartridge, both in appearance and in sound. In comparison to the Goldring, the EAT cartridge favors the upper bass and lower midrange, sounding fuller and weightier. The Jo N°8 is slightly more restrained in the top end, lacking some of the Ethos SE’s sparkle and air. Both cartridges throw superbly delineated images, with the EAT bringing drums, bass, and male voices slightly forward in the soundstage, in contrast to the Goldring, which tends to favor guitars, female vocals, and cymbals.
Both of these cartridges are superb at their price points, and I’d be hard-pressed to pick an overt winner. If cash is tight and an extra three hundo is hard to come by, you sure as hell can’t go wrong with the Goldring. It was a delight on my VPI, and it’s extremely responsive to tweaks, so it’ll keep you busy.
But if that extra cash isn’t a consideration, the weighty, double-plus-rich sound of the Jo N°8 might tempt you over to wallow in a bath of warm honey. Keep in mind, though, the Goldring is a much-higher-compliance design than the EAT, so you’ll need a lower-mass tonearm for the British cartridge.
Watch your step
Writing a cartridge review is like trying to navigate through a minefield. There are so many variables to account for. Used to be I’d feel terrified of slipping up and destroying a review sample, but that fear has receded over the years. Now I love setting up these little guys. It feels like I’m unwrapping a precious little Fabergé egg, and installing the thing is like performing open-heart surgery on a hummingbird. I love fiddling with and optimizing cartridges, finding out what works and what doesn’t.
And when I get it right, when I finally get a cartridge to really sing, it’s a joy. I’ve built something, crafted a working system out of disparate parts. I always get this kind of satisfaction from the cartridge-reviewing process, but this time, with the Goldring Ethos SE, I ended up putting in more work than usual, because this little guy rewarded me every step of the way.
Without a doubt, the Ethos SE is a great cartridge. At its retail price, it’s a bargain. Highly recommended.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
Associated Equipment
- Turntables: VPI Prime Signature, European Audio Team Fortissimo S
- Cartridges: European Audio Team Jo N°8, DS Audio DS 003
- Phono preamplifiers: Aqvox Phono 2 CI, Hegel Music Systems V10, EMM Labs DS-EQ1, Meitner Audio DS-EQ2, Mola Mola Lupe
- Preamplifiers: Hegel Music Systems P30A, Meitner Audio PRE, Simaudio Moon Evolution 740P
- Power amplifier: Hegel Music Systems H30A
- Integrated amplifier: Hegel Music Systems H120, Eico HF-81, Marantz Model 10
- Digital sources: Logitech Squeezebox Touch, Meitner Audio MA3
- Speakers: Focus Audio FP60 BE, Aurelia XO Cerica XL, Totem Acoustic Sky Tower, Bowers & Wilkins 805 D4 Signature
- Subwoofers: Bowers & Wilkins DB2D (2)
- Speaker cables: Siltech Royal Single Crown, Audience Au24 SX, Nordost Tyr 2, Crystal Cable Art Series Monet
- Interconnects: Siltech Royal Single Crown, Audience Au24 SX, Furutech Ag-16, Nordost Tyr 2, Crystal Cable Diamond Series 2
- Power cords: Siltech Royal Single Crown, Audience FrontRow, Nordost Vishnu
- Power conditioner: Quantum QBase QB8 Mk II
- Accessories: Little Fwend tonearm lift, VPI Cyclone record-cleaning machine
Goldring Ethos SE moving-coil phono cartridge
Price: US$1999, CA$2899, £1299, €1599
Warranty: One year
Goldring
Armour Home Electronics
Woodside 2
Dunmow Road
Bishop’s Stortford,
Hertsfordshire CM23 5RG UK
Website: www.goldringusa.com
