All Soundsmith cartridges are handmade to order in Peekskill, NY. Peter Ledderman, the founder of Soundsmith, makes many of them himself. Peter is always striving for the next level of perfection and is constantly tinkering with his cartridge designs for the ultimate in performance. Your cartridge can even be custom tuned for your system based upon your turntable and phono preamp setup. Expect about a 3-4 week lead time on all Soundsmith cartridges, it's well worth the wait to get Peter's latest creation. Should you wish to inquire about customization, please feel free to contact us.

Created out of the desire to make a very high performance design at an affordable price, the Carmen was crafted to have unparalleled purity of tone and ultra-smooth presentation. Just slightly lush with a well-developed midrange, the Carmen is surprisingly pleasing and will seduce you into long, late listening sessions.

The stylus used is a large part of what makes it special; an ultra-low mass occlusion free nude diamond cut and polished into a true hyper-elliptical shape. The combination of low tip mass and the Fixed Coil design gives the Carmen a tremendous resolution advantage over MC designs selling for more than twice the price. Housed in a handmade solid Ebony case, the Carmen delivers.

Also available in dual-coil mono.