Soundsmith Helios

Made in  the USA. Rebuild Price? ~  $850 ~ Only 20% of MSRP, as always!

The Helios also features an industry first: A 10-year warranty that includes free re-tipping service for stylus wear to the original owner!

The Helios is hand-made to order. It takes approximately 30 days until they’re ready to ship.

The Soundsmith Helios, the Sun-Goddess daughter of the Hyperion Moving Iron Cartridge features the unique “cactus spine” cantilever! 

Soundsmith is pleased to announce the Helios Medium Output cartridge designed to fill the need for audiophiles that have moderate gain preamplifiers from such esteemed manufacturers as Conrad-Johnson and Audio Research among many others! 

Peter Ledermann designed the Helios cartridge to perform flawlessly in preamps that utilize a 48dB-54dB gain structure. No longer is there any fear of overloading with a high output MM cartridge or having to ramp up the volume with a low output MC type. 

Based on Peter’s now classic Hyperion Moving Iron design, the Helios moderate output cartridge gives the same level of performance as its sibling. Without any tradeoffs, this new medium output cartridge will breathe new life and alter expectations from audio system front-ends with moderate gain! 

Superior cantilever designs have always employed tapered cantilevers – Hard to do with aluminum, and all but impossible with the super hard and durable materials, such as boron, ruby or diamond. Cantilevers must also have dualistic qualities that are mutually exclusive; both stiffness and damping are required. The tapered, longitudinal stacked columnar fibers, stacked and damped with desiccated resin are exactly what one would build if one could – fortunately “nature” has done it for us. The best of both worlds – extreme rigidity, internal damping, and tremendous strength define what Soundsmith feels is the best cantilever that can be built. Used in conjunction with their most highly refined Moving Iron cartridge design, the Helios has realized their hope – to further resolve the enjoyment of vinyl replay. Soundsmith’s moving iron design allows the required stationary magnetic parts to be rigidly held in exact position at all times thereby allowing dramatic reduction of the moving mass in the generating system. 

An Unparalleled Warranty:
The Helios Cartridge is covered for a full 10 years, including free re-tipping to the original owner. An absolutely unheard of warranty for cartridges. To take advantage of the free re-tipping, the customer must be the original owner, must have filled out and sent in the warranty/registration for the cartridge at the time of purchase and must contact Soundsmith directly requesting the retip.

After warranty has expired, retip is less than 12% of the retail ($850). Typical retip time is 4-6 weeks. Made in the USA, the Soundsmith cartridges are the best long-term values around! 

Features:
• Soundsmith’s fully shielded design allows totally hum-free operation, RF shielding, and extreme mechanical stability.
• Ultra low effective moving mass resulting in superlative transient and micro detail performance
• Precision formed Cactus Needle Cantilever (Patents Pending) with Selected Contact Line Nude diamond stylus
• Composite body featuring impedance matched energy transmission system
• Virtually hum-free operation due to six-sided HyMu80 magnetic shielding
• 10 Year Warranty includes Free Retipping to the original owner