I remember the first time I ever saw an EMT 950 turntable. It was also the last time I ever saw an EMT 950 turntable. The radio station where it resided was “under renovation”; making room for some crazy little black discs that promised perfect sound forever. The producer in the studio was busy pounding the life out of a cart machine and simultaneously trying to feed a reel-to-reel deck, so he was too involved to notice me running my hands all over the object of beauty before my eyes. The station had not used it years (hello Johnny Fever), but as is the case at many stations (especially the ones I’ve worked at since age 19), it sat there gathering dust until it used up too much space. Some lucky collector probably picked it up for peanuts. The EMT 950 was an electronically controlled direct drive turntable, which pretty much guaranteed that any idiot working in a radio station could operate it.

My father, who worked in radio for more than thirty years, fondly remembers the EMT tables, which he referred to as the “Buick” of console turntables. Woody Allen killed one just like it in Annie Hall.

“I just killed a turntable. It was as big as a Buick.”

EMT turntables such as the model 930 are not exactly what I would call “home” friendly products, due to their considerable size and weight. They almost need a section of the room all to themselves.

As we were putting the March Episode of American Wired to bed, I received an email from a reader in Germany who was curious if we could do a follow-up story to an article that had appeared in Sound Practices many years ago. Down I went to the basement to dig up a copy of that particular issue and after some reading, I decided to put it on my list of “summer” articles to get done before the baby arrives.

EMT turntables are obviously not available anymore (not news ones, anyway), but interest in the cartridges and tonearms has remained high for audiophiles who prize their sound. Finding an EMT table to listen to before writing the article was not going to be that easy, but I should have known better. There is always at least one example of “everything” in New York.

EMT has launched two entirely new products to celebrate their 66th anniversary starting with the JSD5 and JSD6 cartridges. Earlier this year, EMT reintroduced the long EMT 997 “banana” tonearm. This project was spearheaded by Keith Aschenbrenner of Auditorium 23. The new EMT 997 is finally available with the so-called SME connector and was called "a life changing experience" by Roland Kraft of Image Hi-Fi magazine in Germany.

The various EMT cartridge models are available three ways:

Standard mount for any arm, EMT mount for EMT studio standard 997 and 929 arms, and the SME mount for any arm with a removable headshell.

EMT T and O series mount: These only work with the original EMT tonearm 929 and 997. A few very early Ortofon tonearms also work with this configuration if you turn the internal connector by 45 degrees.

SME mount (X series): These are built into a standard mount headshell, which can plug directly into almost any arm with a removable headshell. Examples include the SME 3012, SME 3009, Ikeda's, Fidelity Research, Saec, some Ortofon arms and a hundred others with removable headshells made from the 50's to present.

Standard mount cartridges (J series): These fit just about any quality arm on the planet except the EMT studio standard tonearms but will fit on the reintroduced EMT arms. These are the ones you'll use 99% of the time with anything from a Rega RBx00, SME 309, SME IV, SME V, Graham, Immedia, Well Tempered, Basis, Clearaudio, Schroeder, Origin Live, or Nottingham.

The basic cartridge line-up is as follows:

JSD series: The JSD series is the first new stereo cartridge introduction from EMT since 1992. The JSD5 uses a boron cantilever with a Geiger S stylus while the JSD6 is the same cartridge but with a super fineline stylus. Output is 1mv@5cm/sec. The JSD series builds upon the sound of the famous EMT TSD15.

TSD15 in various stylus geometries - spherical, super fineline, and van den Hul. This is the world famous stereo cartridge used in studios throughout the world since the 1960's and an amazing performer for a reasonable price. This is the cartridge that started van den Hul on his journey; he modified these and called them the MC1A. They are still very much on the market under various names.

OFD25 mono: This is an authentic mono MC cartridge with a single coil and has a proper 25 micron stylus profile for accurate tracing of early micro groove mono records. Hearing a proper mono cartridge will make you wonder why we ever went to stereo.

OFD65 78 cartridge: As above - a true 78-RPM MC cartridge. These come stock with a 65-micron stylus for later 78's. They can be special ordered at a slight premium in larger profiles for earlier 78's such as 80 micron, 90 micron, 100 micron and 120 micron.

The basic rule of 78-playback stylus size is:

Pre-1920 acoustical records: 100 - 120 microns
Records between 1920 and 1939: 80 - 90 microns
Records after 1939: 65 microns

EMT can custom make their 78 RPM cartridges for Edison (Hill and Dale) discs as well.

One question that lingers in regard to the entire EMT line of cartridges is how do they plan on dealing with repairs and refurbishment? According to designer Jules Limon, a “repair will involve a complete refurbishment and not just involve an exchange of needles. The generator with the cantilever, along with the coils will be disassembled and everything replaced. The cartridge body and all of the connectors will be cleaned and the magnet will be newly magnetized.”

EMT will continue to release new products in the near future. A brand new and very exciting product release will be shown at the Munich show in May.

While all of that “news” is great for vinyl fans, it doesn’t help if there isn’t a distributor or retailer in the U.S. bringing the goods into the market. There has not been an EMT distributor for years in the United States.

There is now.

While visiting Tone Imports in late-March to pick-up the Shindo Labs Aurieges L and Montille, which were slated for review, I noticed that the distributor had an EMT 927 turntable on display. Not only was the sample of the 927 completely refurbished (don’t even ask how much), but it also had the aforementioned new cartridges that I had read about.

Take a guess whom the new distributor is.

Tone Imports.

AW
What made you decide to bring in something like EMT at this point in the game? The market and demand for such a product is not exactly huge.

Jonathan Halpern/TI
My interest in EMT products began in 1995 when I purchased a second-hand van den Hul MC1A modified EMT TSD15. I had tried quite a few cartridges prior and liked and disliked many things about each one. It was hard to find a cartridge that seemed to do everything right, so I started accumulating cartridges. I wound up with around 40 or so different models. I stumbled upon this odd looking cartridge that had its roots in the early years of broadcasting; it was odd in that it was nude and had its connections dangling off the backside. The worst part, or so I thought, was the relatively high 2.5 gram tracking force required. When I mounted it on my tonearm, I was immediately taken with the harmonic richness, dynamics, presence, immediacy, timing and all around rightness. I was still worried about the high tracking force requirement.

I was lucky enough to have a mentor with a deep knowledge of turntable set-up and cartridge design, and he explained to me how tracking force goes hand in hand with the stylus geometry and size - pounds per square inch comes to mind as a good analogy. I, also later began doing research into some early RCA experiments back in the 1950's. It seems they ran a test to check how many times a record could be played before damage was done to the delicate grooves. If I remember correctly, they played an LP 2,000 times (no twenty-four hour breaks to let the vinyl reform...another old wives tale) with a tracking force of 8 grams before finding the slightest bit of groove wear under a microscope. It seems that grooves are not nearly as delicate as I had thought.

It turns out that the Shure Brothers (and others) had performed a marketing miracle - they convinced a whole generation of LP users that we must track light. Marketing was all it was, and this was the near death of some of the greatest cartridge designs ever made. Fortunately, studio engineers were not so convinced of this and continued to support and purchase cartridges from EMT, Denon, and Ortofon for broadcast use.
I've never looked back and the EMT is the lightest tracking cartridge in my collection.

I still have and use that original TSD15 and love it. Finding out about the roots of this interesting brand was rather difficult. When I was working in one of the large NYC audio stores, an EMT 927 turntable was offered up for trade in, and I still regret not grabbing it immediately. As usual with me, when I bypass something I really want, I wind up on a mission to find it again. Reading the Sound Practices article on the EMT turntables did nothing to calm my interest. Last year, I finally found a mint condition EMT 927 F and it sits proudly on the top of my rack next to my Shindo 301.

A few years ago with the help of Google, I came across a website claiming to offer the EMT cartridges for sale. I quickly emailed and asked for the contact info for the company so I could import these cartridges. My numerous emails went unanswered. About 18 months ago, Keith Aschenbrenner (of Auditorium 23) informed me of a secret project he was pushing on: a reissue of the incredible EMT 997 studio tonearm with the possibility of using it for "SME standard" headshells. Not only was he the driving force behind it, it was to be manufactured based on the original drawings, supervised by an EMT engineer (80 years old at this time!) and on the original tooling. I asked Keith to please put me in touch with the company so I could import the products. Recently I was put in contact with Jules Limon of EMT and I secured the distribution rights.

EMT Studiotechnik GmbH is owned by Mr. Walter Derrer. Jules Limon designed the new JSD series of cartridges. Mr. Limon is a man after my own heart with a big vintage collection of tonearms, cartridges, turntables, tube amps, speakers and jukeboxes. Mr. Glaser is the 80 year-old engineer from EMT who built the tonearms.

American Wired hopes to secure a few of these new cartridges for review sometime in 2006 and we suspect that fans of the EMT sound are going to be more than pleased with the results.

Ian White