Analog Gear News

All hail the mighty Maya cart! Or, to be more specific, meet the Segno Maya, a new moving coil (MC) cartridge that’s going to be distributed by Pure Sound. (European-based, Pure Sound is known for manufacturing and distributing their own valve/tube electronics, along with distributing turntables and tonearms from STST in Germany and phono preamps from Aurorasound in Japan, among other high-end gear.)

The product name combo is an interesting one, to say the least. Segno is a character that instructs musicians exactly where to go to in musical notation in order to repeat a particular passage, while Maya was chosen in honor of the Mayan civilization in Central America. (You’ll see the segno symbol itself emblazoned on the Maya cart in most of the photos of it that are being shown throughout this story.)

At the heart of the Segno Maya cartridge is a quad of hand-wound, 5N (99.999%) pure silver coils mounted on a square permalloy former. This assembly is suspended in a precisely focused field produced by a rare earth, Samarium Cobalt (a.k.a. SmCo) magnet.

The company says they prefer the tonal quality produced by this type of generator over more commonly used Neodymium (NdFeB) type magnets. In their view, while an NdFeB magnet might produce a stronger field than the equivalent SmCo magnet, it’s the way these respective magnets replenish their field after inducing a signal in a coil that determines the sonic differences between the magnet types.

A precision ground, fine-line profile diamond is mounted into the Maya’s titanium cantilever that couples the groove modulation to the generator. Titanium is an extremely stiff material to deploy as a tubular cantilever, and it is said not to impart certain pronounced resonant characteristics that aluminium or boron can. The stereo output from the generator is delivered by the silver wire to the cartridge pins.

The Maya’s generator assembly is mounted in an extremely strong, aluminium body, anodized to a dark blue color reminiscent of the pigments produced by the aforementioned Mayan people of Central America (hence, the name).

Other specs for the Maya cart include an output level given as 0.35mV (1kHz, 5cm/sec), Dc resistance as 2ohms, frequency response as 20 to 25,000Hz ±1dB, channel separation as >28dB, channel balance as <0.5dB, and tracking force range as 1.7 to 2.5g with a recommended tracking force of 2.0g. The cart’s height is given as 17mm, and its weight is 7.6g.

Finally, the SRP for the Segno Maya MC cartridge is £999.95.

For more about official Segno Maya distributor Pure Sound, go here.
To find an authorized dealer via Pure Sound, go here.