Analog Relaxin’ with the EX1000 cartridge
So glad to be back in business with superclean electricity! Especially having spent the last few weeks listening to the remarkably pure-sounding Analog Relax EX1000 cartridge ($16,000).
The brochure asks, “Have you heard of YAKUSUGI Cedar?” No. I had never heard of Analog Relax, either. If you have heard of it, you’re at least one step ahead of me.
Analog Relax, the brochure says, is produced by ZOOT Communication. On the company’s website I learned that in Japanese “zoot” means “always.” ZOOT Communication President Yasushi Yurugi is also a big Zoot Sims fan. He started the world’s only Zoot Sims fan club.
The EX1000 is the company’s top-of-the-line cartridge. According to the emailed brochure, the body is carved from a rare piece of Yakusugi cedar that’s more than 2000 years old. Every component has been “tuned to perfection.” The cartridge has “an organic and sensual sound the like of which has never been seen.” Say, what?
Yakusugi cedar has a fascinating back story that seeks to explain its effect on the sound—as do all cartridge wood varieties from snakewood in the Miyajima Labs Madake special edition to cocobolo in Grado’s Epoch 3. The more exotic the name, the better! I’ll let you read all about the Yakusugi cedar on the Analog Relax website,1 but in a nutshell (or tree trunk): Difficult, unusual growing conditions produce 1- to 2mm-wide tree rings, resulting in strong, rigid wood. Growing in a wet environment, the trees have evolved a specialized resin that keeps the wood from rotting. The trees are protected by law, and only trees that are already felled can be sold, so the wood’s scarcity will increase. You hear the picture.
Beyond the body (which looks as stunning as advertised, and like shiny supermarket fruit is coated with bee’s wax), the motor consists of “high purity” copper coils, neodymium magnets, and an unusually smaller-diameter-than-is-usually-seen ruby cantilever, which terminates in a “Super Curve Line Contact (version 2)” stylus. Output is “over” 0.5mV, internal impedance is 15 ohms,
