Curious Why Benz Micro Slid Into Obscurity

@no_regrets

You’re welcome! I think about this stuff way too much lol. One correction: when I was saying "ohms to output" ratio I really meant the reverse "output to ohms". For an "ideal" transducer (and SUT match) you want as much output voltage as possible from as little coils (lower ohms) as possible. So looking at output voltages in microVolts (uV) might help get a nicer ratio number for comparisons:
Benz Ruby L / LPS: 380 uV / 40 ohms = 9.5
Shelter Harmony / Accord / 901: 500uV / 15 ohms = 33.3
Benz Glider L / Wood L: 400 uV / 12 ohms = 33.3
Ortofon Cadenza Bronze / Koetsu Urushi: 400uV / 5 ohms = 80
MSL Eminent Ex: 400 uV / 0.9 ohms = 444

I think it’s no coincidence that cartridges towards the bottom like Koetsu and MSL are renowned for their matching to SUT. You could probably make an analogous argument for current injection phono stages!

So why do they use a rube plate in the upper Benz models? The theory is that a piece of moving iron (iron cross) dynamically disrupts the magnetic field (it should remain static in an "ideal" transducer), which causes distortion. They can also use a much larger & stronger neodymium magnet in these models - it’s so powerful it would be impossible to accurately position the iron cross in there. The ruby plate has no problem there. "Air coils" achieves the same thing, but without the structure (and mass) provided by the plate - but these are rare.

An alternative technique: Dynavector has that big copper coil wound around its front pole piece to "damp" magnetic flux disturbances from the moving iron armature. It's not in the signal path, it's just there to bleed off magnetic flux disturbances.

That ratio of voltage output to coil impedance is better known as “current”, in Amperes.

@lewm Yes - current, amperes! Silly me lol

IMHO Benz Gullwing beats Lyra Atlas Lamda SL, Clear Audio Goldfinger, Koetsu  Blue Lace Diamond, Ortofon Verismo and its big brother Benz LP.

In an ET 2 arm in the Oracle 6 the Gullwing exceeds those other great cartridges by a country mile. Deeper bass and lifelike presentation of a symphony orchestra in, ahem, full flight.

* There's no body like no body.

@mulveling Thank you for your description. After my Benz Ruby 3 wore out, It was a little anemic dynamically but beautiful sounding and tracked perfectly. I replaced it with a Dynavector 20X2 L. The Zesto Allesso (and others) SUT works great with the Dynavector but the Ruby always was very touchy in my system on the end of a highly moded SME IV arm as to impedance (220 ohms only). So, those five Dynavectors I owned prior to the Benz also avoided magnetic flux build-up in a way. Great to know and I will pass this info on to four friends who use Dynavectors.

Also, Gullwing comparison to 2MBlack. My best friend Robert (also known as Mr. Record whose column appears in Pos Feedback) tried a 2M Black for a few months and gave up on it. It was great on 15% of his LPs and just bad on everything else.