EAT Jo No5 cartridge Lab Report

While the bulbous mint-green carapace that protects EAT's Jo No5 looks very bulky, it's the internal alloy frame, yoke, magnets and mounting plate that really contribute to the high 15g overall bodyweight. Fortunately EAT's 12cu-specified compliance for the Jo No5 is bang on the money, maintaining the likely arm/cartridge resonance at a sensibly high 9Hz with 10-11g medium mass tonearms. In practice the claimed 20° VTA is rather closer to 28° and the optimistic 80µm 'trackability' specification more like 65µm/70µm via the left/right channels, respectively, just breaching 1% THD at +16dB (re. 315Hz/5cm/sec). The maximum +18dB groove modulation sent our Jo No5 skipping off into the lead-out groove at its rated 2.4g downforce, but tracking is still excellent for such a low compliance design.

1218eat.resp.jpg

Frequency response curves (–8dB re. 5cm/sec) lateral (L+R, black) versus vertical (L–R, red)

1218eat.thd.jpg

Lateral (L+R, black infill) and vertical (L–R, red) tracing and generator distortion (2nd-4th harmonics) vs. frequency from 20Hz-20kHz (–8dB re. 5cm/sec)

The functional engineering is contemporary, from its alloy cantilever with crimped end and perfectly-mounted 8x40µm line-contact diamond. Moreover the modest 300µV rated output (re. 1kHz/5cm/sec) actually turns out closer to 445µV – an improvement of 3.4dB – while channel balance is far better than the spec'd 1.2dB at just 0.3dB. The Jo No5's response is sculpted for a solid bass with a milder mid/presence and 'brighter' aspect to central images [black trace, Graph 1] than those at the periphery of the soundtage [red trace]. The excellent generator symmetry is arguably better reflected by the similar distortion trends of lateral and vertical sweeps [black and red traces, Graph 2]. Lateral (mono) cuts suffer typically <1% up to 3kHz and <7% up to 10kHz (–8dB re. 5cm/sec), the peaked distortion at 20kHz more a reflection of the Jo No5's potential bandwidth than any non-linearity in the performance of the MC generator. PM

Generator type/weight Moving-coil: / 15g
Recommended tracking force: 2.2-2.5mN (2.4mN)
Sensitivity/balance (re. 5cm/sec): 445µV / 0.31dB
Compliance (vertical/lateral): 12cu / 11cu
Vertical tracking angle: 28 degrees
L/R Tracking ability: 70μm / 65μm
L/R Distortion (–8dB, 20Hz-20kHz): 0.7–25% / 0.5–12%
L/R Frequency resp. (20Hz-20kHz): +0.8 to –7.7dB / +0.4 to –3.7dB
Stereo separation (1kHz / 20kHz): 28dB / 20dB
Price: £999

COMPANY INFO
European Audio Team
Austria
Supplied by: Absolute Sounds Ltd
0208 971 3909
ARTICLE CONTENTS

X