THIS ISSUE: Herb listens to the new SUTZ transimpedance headamp from Sutherland Engineering and two cartridges from Dynavector.
As an upstart journalist-flâneur, my basic urge is to step on the gas and let my ’54 Buick careen down the freeway, crashing into guardrails on both sides. Old Buicks were built for that, and I would love to take readers on one of those kinds of rides.
But when I write this monthly column, I find myself aiming for a different feel, more like driving cross-country in a ’70s Ford station wagon, documenting motels and gas stations. A trip where it’s fun to roll easy, take in the views, and stop at every car museum, snake farm, and stalactite cave.
This month, I’m going to put some miles on the Ford’s odometer as I investigate the effects of Ron Sutherland’s newest current-drive creation: a $3800 transimpedance moving coil headamp called the SUTZ. Along the way, I will also re-review Dynavector’s $1250 DV-20X2 moving coil cartridge and examine what might be the sweetest spot in Dynavector’s cartridge lineup: the $2150 XX-2 MKII.
Finally, I’ll pull into a rest stop, get out of the car, and refamiliarize myself with Lounge Audio’s $355 Copla headamp, a product I’ve used with enthusiasm since I reviewed it in February of 20181 but have not written about since that first review.
SUTHERLAND ENGINEERING’S SUTZ HEADAMP
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to picture all the electromagnetic hoopla caused by wiggling a stick connected to some wire coils in a magnetic field. I’ve pictured the bumpy record grooves shaking a tiny stylus/cantilever/coil assembly, stretching its tensioning wire while swinging its coils through the fixed lines of magnetic flux created by a very small equivalent of a horseshoe magnet. As the coils move through the magnet’s flux, an electric current is induced along their length.
I learned to picture this Faraday’s law part in grade school. In high school, a teacher explained Lenz’s law, and that was trickier to comprehend: “The polarity of the voltage generated by changes in magnetic flux produces a current whose magnetic field opposes the change which produced it.”
Surprisingly, as I worked to imagine how current-drive audio stages work and why they affect the sound of
