GRADO phono cartridge
Prestige Gold3
The Gold3 is the flagship model of GRADO's entry-level Prestige series. This is one of only 5% of the Silver3 to pass a rigorous quality control process. The entire production process is carried out by hand by skilled craftsmen at our headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y. It consists of a brass bushing and a four-piece cantilever with a unique synthetic diamond. It has a frequency response of 10 Hz to 60,000 Hz.
Compared to the Silver, the sound is much more granular and three-dimensional.
Product Features
Mellow Yellow
Both the Silver3 and Gold3 use a four piece OTL cantilever with a Grado specific elliptical diamond stylus mounted on a brass bushing. With the Silver3 and Gold3, a machined turned generator is used to achieve a lower distortion and greater transparency. The Gold3 are hand selected from Silver3 production runs which meet higher test specifications. Approximately 5% of the run usually exhibits these specs and become a Gold3.
Grado’s OTL, or optimized transmission line, technology provides an ideal transfer of signal from the surface of the LP to the generator of the system.
This technology rejects unwanted resonances and lowers distortion preserving the fundamental and harmonic frequencies of the music. This also helps keep noise generated by the motor system in the cartridge to a minimum.
Grado’s OTL stylus/cantilever design makes records sound quieter, improves the height, width, and depth of the soundstage, and present more detail than previously obtainable.
The Silver3 & Gold3 are all hand assembled by our team in Brooklyn, with some builders having over 25 years of experience. With the recent development of the highly received Lineage Series of cartridges, we were able to have a trickle down of technology and bring a new technique to the Silver3 & Gold3. This updated series of cartridges offers excellent tonal balance, dynamics, and realism, for a most rewarding reproduction of vocals and instruments. Our coil winding techniques, using ultra high purity copper wire which were honed during the development of the Lineage Series, have let the electrical circuits achieve unison between the four coils in each phono cartridge. This allows for a precise balance between channels and accurate stereo imaging.
As in all Grado phono cartridges the Silver3 & Gold3 are powered by a twin magnet system that optimizes the balance between stereo channels. All internal magnetic circuit parts are held to extremely high tolerances creating the desired stereo imaging. Grado’s patented Flux-Bridger design allows the Silver3 & Gold3 to have one of the lowest effective moving mass generating systems while creating an excellent balance throughout the full frequency range.
The development of the Epoch in the Lineage Series gave us an in-depth experience with using an outer housing as a damping device. This led to the creation of a process which de-stresses the chassis and dissipates unwanted energy & resonant frequencies, allowing the desired signal to travel freely.
MI (Moving Iron) type cartridge
Unlike MC (Moving Coil) and MM (Moving Magnet) type cartridges, MI type cartridges generate power by moving the magnetic metal mounted on the cantilever, and are positioned as a derivative of MM type cartridges. It is a derivative of the MM type. The light weight of the drive unit in power generation enables excellent transient characteristics and wide range reproduction.
Product Specification
Frequency Response: 10Hz-60,000Hz
Principal: MI
Channel Separation at 1KHz: 35dB
Input Load: 47kΩ
Output at 1KHz 5CM/sec.: 5mV
Recommended Tracking Force: 1.5
Stylus Type: E
Inductance: 45mH
Resistance: 475Ω
Compliance CUs: 20
Stylus Replacement: U
Mounting: S/P
Weight: 5.5g
JAN code: 4528114115381