The Goldring Ethos is Goldring's flagship standard moving coil cartridge, sitting above the Elite (£799) and just below the silver-coiled Ethos SE (£1,299). Designed and hand-built in the UK, each Ethos is individually adjusted to deliver a smooth, extended frequency response with enhanced trackability.
GOL-1 Moving Coil Generator
At the heart of the Ethos is Goldring's proprietary GOL-1 moving coil generator. A hand-wound, cross-shaped soft-iron armature carries the signal coils within a uniform magnetic field generated by a neodymium magnet. The copper coil windings are precision-wound to achieve an output of 0.5 mV at 1 kHz and 5 cm/s, with channel separation exceeding 30 dB and channel balance within 1 dB.
Stylus and Cantilever
The Ethos uses a vital-shank, nude diamond stylus with a polyhedral line-contact profile. This profile traces more of the groove wall than elliptical or conical alternatives, recovering finer detail from the record surface. The stylus is mounted on a stiff, lightweight aluminium alloy cantilever, chosen for its combination of rigidity and low mass. A bespoke butyl rubber damper pad provides the suspension compliance, tuned to give a dynamic compliance of 15 mm/N and a static compliance of 25 mm/N.
Construction
The cartridge body is machined from aircraft-grade aluminium, selected for its low resonance characteristics. The complete assembly weighs 7.7 g (8.5 g with fixings) and mounts via standard 12.7 mm (half-inch) fixing centres. Recommended tracking force is 1.75 g, within a permissible range of 1.5–2.0 g.
| Cartridge Type | Moving Coil |
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| Stylus Profile | Vital line-contact (nude diamond) |
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| Cantilever | Aluminium alloy |
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| Replacement Stylus | Factory replaceable |
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| Frequency Range | 10 Hz – 32 kHz |
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| Frequency Response | ± 2 dB (35 Hz – 20 kHz) |
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| Channel Balance | <1 dB at 1 kHz |
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| Channel Separation | >30 dB at 1 kHz |
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| Output Voltage | 0.5 mV ± 1 dB at 1 kHz, 5 cm/s (rms) |
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| Static Compliance | 25 mm/N |
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| Dynamic Compliance | 15 mm/N |
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| Vertical Tracking Angle | 20° |
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| Recommended Load Resistance | 100 Ω |
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| Load Capacitance | 100 – 1,000 pF |
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| Internal Inductance | 7.5 µH |
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| Internal Resistance | 4 Ω |
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| Cartridge Mass | 7.7 g |
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| Total Mass (incl. fixings) | 8.5 g |
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| Fixing Centres | 12.7 mm |
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| Tracking Force | 1.5 – 2.0 g (recommended 1.75 g) |
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