Clearaudio Goldfinger v2 Moving-Coil Cartridge & Double Matrix Record-Cleaning Machine

Deutsch Delights

It was only a few months ago that I declared the innovative Air Tight PC-1 cartridge my new mc reference, because of its standard-setting transient speed and astonishing lowlevel detail. Comes now the Clearaudio Goldfinger, and I’ll be darned if it isn’t a standard-setter in its own right.

For years the knock against Clearaudio moving coils was that they were too lean, bright, and analytical. Of course, the flip side of this was that they were also fabulously high in resolution, as well as fabulous soundstagers and imagers. How to make them fuller, more lifelike, more gemütlich in timbre without sacrificing that resolution, soundstaging, and imaging has been the problem that has occupied Clearaudio’s brain trust—the Suchys, Vater und Söhne—for the past decade or so. From the Discovery moving coil on, each subsequent iteration of Clearaudio mc has moved a little farther away from “too lean” and a little closer to “just right.” (“Too fat” was never an issue.) And with the Goldfinger v2 the balance problem has been effectively solved.

All you have to do is listen to a violin, like Nadia Salerno- Sonnenberg’s Strad on her thrilling performance of the Prokofiev First Violin Sonata [MusicMasters], or the top octaves of Mr. John Cage’s Prepared Piano [Decca Head] to hear that exceptionally lifelike tone color is now mixed with Clearaudio’s extraordinary resolution, transient response, and imaging and ’staging. Indeed, with the proper preamplification, amplification, and speakers, the instruments on these two records (and many others) can sound disarmingly “realistic”— not just “there,” but there without (or with a much reduced) sense that they’re being generated by a piece of hi-fi gear.

I’m not exactly sure what is happening with the Goldfinger (and with the PC-1), although I am sure that flat (or flatter) frequency response is not the explanation. It’s not that the PC- 1 or the Goldfinger don’t have the old familiar rising top end of mc’s—both do. It’s that instead of shouting their foibles at us, they’ve begun to whisper. What seem to be going away are familiar distortions, and as noise, ringing, and resonances are reduced so is the electromechanical signature of the cartridge.

With a cartridge, some customary distortion is obviously traceable to the interface between stylus and LP. Like the PC-1, the Goldfinger seems to “lock into” the grooves more firmly. Clearaudio would undoubtedly point to its new hyperparabolic Micro-HD-Diamond stylus—with a mass (0.00016g) one-fifth that of previous Clearaudio diamond styli. Be that as it may, the hashy background noises and swimmy imaging artifacts of mistracking and mistracing are much less audible in the Goldfinger, and this in itself adds to the non-mechanical sound of the cartridge (particularly in the treble). However, it isn’t just better tracking/tracing that makes the Goldfinger “disappear” more as a sound source.

Clearaudio claims that the twelve tabs of the mounting plate at the top of the cartridge —the “fingers” that give the Goldfinger one half of its name (the other half comes from its solid-gold chassis)—minimize cartridge-body resonances. Having heard a similar reduction in coloration (and improved “disappearing act”) in Clearaudio’s Titanium Fingers mc, I have reason to think this might be true. On top of which, as with the Air Tight PC-1, the magnetic engine that translates mechanical movements of the stylus into the electrical signals fed to your phonostage has been greatly beefed up. The Goldfinger uses twice as many “Super Neodymium” magnets as previous Clearaudios, so its lighter-weight coils are operating in a much stronger magnetic field. Not only is the cartridge’s electrical output raised (0.8mV), but dynamic range is now claimed to exceed 100dB, which is another way of saying that noise has been significantly reduced.

The lessening of mechanical tracking/tracing distortion, the lowering of cartridge-body and cartridge/arm resonances, the increase in signal strength and dynamic range (or the decrease in electrical distortion), all add up to an mc that makes music sound more “there” (and its own electro-mechanical signature less “there”).

This vanishing act affects every aspect of the sound, from top to bottom. The Goldfinger is stronger (almost CD-strong on big transients, like the trumpet blasts and bass drum strikes toward the end of the second-movement Vivace of Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra [EMI]), more discerning (dig the color, detail, and definition on the harp and pizzicato doublebass seconds, thirds, and fifths at the start of the thirdmovement Passacaglia of the Lutoslawski Concerto or the uncanny colors and weird little “bent” pitches of Mr. Cage’s prepared piano), more natural (the timbres of voices, strings, brass, winds, and percussion are so much closer to lifelike that, with the right records, it’s almost like listening to the real deals), and more self-effacing than virtually any other mc I’ve heard.