Audio Note IO Gold Owner's Manual

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IO Gold

MOVING COIL CARTRIDGE

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OWNER’S INFORMATION

1) CE DECLARATION OF CONFORMITY
DISPOSAL

2) INTRODUCTION

3) OVERVIEW

6) UNPACKING AND INSTALLATION

10) CLEANING AND SERVICING

11) TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

12) WARRANTY INFORMATION

13) CONTACT INFORMATION

CONTENTS

CE DECLARATION OF CONFORMITY

DISPOSAL

This product must not be disposed of as normal household waste. To
prevent possible harm to the environment please separate the product
from other waste to ensure that it can be recycled in an environmentally
safe manner. Please contact your retailer or the appropriate local
government office for collection facilities.

We declare under our sole responsibility that this product is in conformity
with the following standards or standardized documents:

BS EN 60065 in accordance with the regulations 73/23/EEC, 89/336/EEC
(from 1 January 1997)

CE 94

Peter Qvortrup,
Director
Audio Note (UK) Limited
Viscount House
Star Road, Star Trading Estate
Partridge Green
West Sussex
RH13 8RA
United Kingdom

Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

Thank you for purchasing this Audio Note (UK) product. With the correct care it
should give you many years of pleasure and enjoyment.

Please take the time to read all of the information in this manual before connecting
your new component to an electrical supply or your system, to ensure both your
safety and satisfaction.

Please note that due to our desire to continually improve products, specifications are
subject to change without notice. Therefore it is important to refer to the manual that
is supplied with your product for the most accurate information; manuals downloaded
from our website or obtained from other sources may no longer fully apply to your
product.

If you have any questions regarding the information contained within this document
or your new component, please feel free to contact us: -

Audio Note (UK) Limited

Viscount House

Star Road, Star Trading Estate

Partridge Green

West Sussex

RH13 8RA

United Kingdom

Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

e-mail: [e-mail]

INTRODUCTION

Congratulations on your purchase of the Audio Note (UK) IO Gold Moving Coil
cartridge. It is, without question, one of the finest and most technically significant
Moving Coil cartridges available today. No other range of Moving Coil cartridges
offers such an unparalleled combination of hitherto unknown performance,
information retrieval, dynamic contrast, tonal accuracy and sheer musical enjoyment.

Generator Principle

The moving coil principle was chosen as the basis for the design of the IO range of
cartridges, as it offers greater linearity in terms of electrical output from the
mechanical movements of the stylus than any other system. We investigated moving
iron, moving magnet, strain gauge, electret and electrostatic generators, and even
took the unusual step of acquiring a Toshiba cartridge that employed light emitting
diodes to generate the signal from the groove, but in the end it was felt that the
quality of the moving coil system as described by P. G. A. H. Voigt would yield the
best overall results.

Mechanical Construction

To ensure that the stored information on the disc is precisely recovered, it is essential
that the mechanical movement of the stylus is accurately translated into an electrical
signal. Any extraneous excitations arising as a result of vibrations in the cartridge
housing must be eliminated.

Therefore in the design of the Audio Note (UK) cartridges considerable attention has
been paid to the rigidity and structural integrity of the body, and to ensuring that the
adopted mechanical construction stores the absolute minimum of resonant energy,
which will degrade the signal derived from the disc being played.

Mechanical integrity of the cartridge body is an aspect of design that has never been
adequately dealt with before, and as a result all other cartridges suffer greatly from
colourations derived from internal resonances and/or energy stored in their body
assemblies.

To achieve the incredible level of mechanical integrity required for the IO cartridges,
all aspects of body design were reexamined, to minimize standing waves and
eliminate any resonating air pockets within the assembly.

The benefits of getting the mechanical assembly right would be lost if the complete
assembly could not be rigidly mounted in the tonearm, hence the incorporation of the
largest possible surface mounting area and the provision of up to six (6!) bolts to
secure the cartridge to the head shell.

IO GOLD MOVING COIL CARTRIDGE