The CAR-50's substantial, blocky, but heavily machined body definitely sets it apart. Despite the broad shoulders, the cutaway undersides actually give a clear view of the cantilever/stylus assembly, making for easy alignment, while the machined aluminum cover with its indented reference lines is a genuine aid to preliminary installation -- although it’s not a stylus guard in the conventional sense. Given the number of cartridges I’ve seen decapitated by the bits of plastic that are supposed to protect them, the absence of a stylus guard is reason for celebration.

The three threaded mounting holes on either side mean that you should have no problem installing the cartridge and achieving correct overhang in all but the smallest headshells -- as earlier experience with a CAR-20 and the notoriously cramped confines of a Linn Ekos demonstrated. That experiment was driven by the sound of the cartridge, so reminiscent of the Asak T that I just had to find out whether it would work in a Linn 'arm. The answer is yes -- although in order to balance it out you need to use either the heavy counterweight provided by Linn or the Tiger Paw Skale, a composite, underslung design available separately. Is it worth the bother? I should say so -- but then that’s another tale, even if the counterweight requirement is highly relevant.

ack to the CAR-50. I used it with three different tonearms: an Audio Origami PU7, the VPI JMW 12.7 and Kuzma’s own 4Point. It worked with all three but excelled when mated to the heavier effective mass of the VPI and Kuzma 'arms. Once again I had to use the heaviest available counterweight on the 12" JMW arm-top, but (not surprisingly) the variable-mass design of the 4Point weight coped without any problems, both balancing the cartridge and keeping the weight right up against the bearing housing. Setup was a breeze, the good visibility being allied to clearly audible response to input, whether adjusting VTF, azimuth, loading or bias. Likewise, with both the JMW and the 4Point, record-to-record adjustments of VTA were both audible and musically significant.

It’s not only the mechanical characteristics and materials used in the CAR-series cartridges that have been selected to match the Kuzma ‘arms. The sound is a perfect fit too. The very first Kuzma 'arm, the Stogi, owed more than a little to the GB Tools-built Zeta, the first 'arm (along with the Syrinx PU3) to really challenge the dominance of the Linn Ittok. Bigger and considerably heavier, the Zeta, with its 16-gram effective mass, large headshell and composite counterweight, made it a much better match for the likes of the Koetsu cartridges than the lighter and more compact Linn 'arm. Those were lessons that the Kuzmas took to heart and have remembered ever since, with the various Stogis and the later 4Point all offering a depth, weight, power and linearity in the bass that escapes the competition.

It’s a quality that dovetails perfectly with -- and makes the most of -- the stable and solid bottom end that underpins and defines the musical performance of the CAR cartridges, the CAR-50 in particular. But don’t go thinking that this suggests there’s anything stolid, slow or slovenly about the sound. The bass isn’t just solid and weighty, it’s purposeful too, with an almost urgent quality that keeps the lower registers not just up with the tempo but driving it along. There’s no hint or rounding warmth or wooliness here and no temporal vagueness either. Instead, this is bass with the sort of texture, shape, accents and attack that ensure that it so much more than a musical afterthought. This is bass that sets the pattern and establishes the structure for the rest of the musical range. These are qualities that reinforce vinyl’s reputation for engaging musical flow and communication, reminding you why playing records is so much fun.

They’re also qualities that instill the CAR-50 with a real sense of temporal integrity and physical backbone. Listen to Martha Argerich play the Chopin Preludes [Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft 2530 721] and you’ll hear exactly what I mean. From the overlapping surges of the opening to the more melancholic, almost fractured phrasing of the early pieces, there’s a sense of purpose and grounded presence to the playing. Many cartridges lose track of these more impressionistic pieces, lacking shape or direction. The CAR-50 never does. You are never in any doubt as to where the pieces are going or the part that Argerich is playing in their progress. Rather than hesitant or disjointed, they sound measured, with carefully judged and weighted pauses governing their flow and expressive range. The Kuzma cartridge possesses an almost uncanny ability to separate individual key strikes, a function both of pitch security and harmonics -- the way the cartridge centers the note and maps its decay. The attack and weight in the playing are also a revelation, from the rapid, almost tinkling arpeggios to the single, sonorous notes that build or punctuate the pieces.

Rather than sounding strident or cluttered, this is one cartridge that goes beyond informing you that this is a percussion instrument and lets you hear the part played by the performer. It’s a level of insight that reveals both Argerich’s ability and her heartfelt musicality. Rooted in its unhurried sense of substance, the CAR-50 reveals a performance of masterly control and authority, both bent to the expressive vision of the pianist. But just as it reveals that authority in the playing, so too it reveals its own inner confidence. Presented with a piano and a performer who revels in its range, scale and dynamic possibilities, the CAR-50 embraces the challenge and responds with alacrity, safe in the knowledge that it can handle the demands without ever losing shape or control.

This degree of temporal and structural integrity is rare indeed. The peculiar demands of the piano as an instrument, with its complex harmonic nature and combination of sharp attack, slow decay and everything in between, makes the CAR-50’s confident stability immediately apparent, but it is just as important to all instruments and musical genres. Downsize to the smaller end of girl and guitar and it’s just as apparent and just as impressive. "Small Blue Thing" from Suzanne Vega's Close-Up Series, Volume 1 [Cooking Vinyl/Music On Vinyl MOVLP178] takes on added poise and fragility, now that it’s anchored by a central image of impressive presence and dimensionality. The subtle instrumental backing is exactly that, the vocal overdubs both clear and distinct from the lead voice. The result is even greater intimacy and vulnerability in this most intimate of songs.

Yet turn to the opposite extreme -- and you don’t get much more extreme than Maazel’s muscular reading of Mahler's 3rd, with its huge opening tuttis (Maazel and the VPO [CBS 12M 42178]) -- and the most excessive of orchestral displays is handled with aplomb. Interestingly, this might be a great performance, but it’s not well served by a mid-'80s digital recording, yet the Kuzma still manages to instill a serious sense of power and substance, orchestral color and dynamics that will make you jump -- or if they don’t, you need to take a long, hard look at the rest of your system (as well as your vital signs). Maazel delivers some shatteringly intense crescendos -- and the Kuzma does nothing to minimize their scale or impact, really underlining just how loud a big orchestra can be. The juddering bass motifs so much a part of Mahler’s music are solid and full of texture, pitch perfect and purposeful, while the brass has the punch and substance to really pin your ears back. There’s nothing fragile or translucent, etched or ethereal about the sound of the CAR-50. This is a cartridge with a real physical presence. It’s all about musical energy, and when called upon to do so, it can deliver that energy with convincing weight and solidity.

All of this talk of core virtues, coherence and integrity, might lead you to the conclusion that the Kuzma lacks top-end extension or resolution. Its upper registers are certainly better integrated, more substantial and less exposed than a lot of the alternatives clamoring for your attention. Are they rolled off? A Meridian recording of the Choir of St. John's College Cambridge singing the Allegri Miserere [Meridian E4577058] suggests that if they are it’s very subtle indeed. The air around and above the voices, the acoustic space and the vaulted ceiling are all beautifully portrayed, while the distinctive tone of the boy sopranos, so different to female voice, is unmistakable -- and breathtakingly beautiful. John Shuttleworth’s recording of this superb choir takes the lion’s share of the credit, but let’s not forget what’s actually front and center in letting you appreciate this magical musical event.

The sort of well-recorded drum sound that marks late-'70s and early-'80s UK rock recordings is meat and drink to the Kuzma. Cascading drum patterns explode into the soundstage like an avalanche, snares have a real snap, while bass drums, so often rendered as dull thuds, have shape and pitch enough to tell whether they contain a sandbag or not. The Cure’s seminal Seventeen Seconds [Fiction FIXX 004] is an object lesson in stacking layer on layer to create texture and urgency, its propulsive bass-drum and bass-guitar figures forming the essential underpinnings to anchor the spiraling guitar riffs and keyboard fills. I remember carrying it into every room at a hi-fi show back in the early '80s and using "A Forest" to separate the rhythmic men from the boys -- an exercise that convinced me to put down the cash on the just-launched Syrinx PU3. Where so many cartridges and systems wallop and drag their heels with the overlapping bass energy, the CAR-50 separates and drives those low frequencies, to dramatic, toe-tapping effect. Just as it gives weight and authority to the pauses that Argerich imposes on the Chopin, so it perfectly preserves Robert Smith’s studiously off-kilter guitar, with its choppy rhythms and repetitive yet slowly evolving lines. It never lets proceeding meander or lose their forward momentum. Even a track like "At Night" retains that forward-leaning attitude and the sense that it’s always leading somewhere, while the slow, measured beat of the title track, the repeated downward steps of the bass-guitar intro and its assumption of the melody underpinning Smith’s jangly rhythm figures, might be the prototype for the next three albums. Despite the steady tempo, there’s an inevitable momentum to the track’s structure and eventual decay, the perfect irresolute conclusion to this most dystopian of albums.

With the luxury of more than one cartridge to listen to at any given time, the Kuzma’s special quality becomes readily apparent. Where so many cartridges concern themselves with what is being played, the CAR-50 exhibits an unmistakable concern with the why: why write this music, play it or record it? What’s the message and what’s the purpose? That’s a word that sums up this cartridge perfectly -- purpose. It has a solid, centered sense of integration and forward musical motion. It harnesses the whole musical range to its purpose, a single whole from top to bottom. It’s not just the notes that it reproduces; it makes sure you know why they’re there, everything tied firmly to the musical core, all pulling in the same direction. There are many cartridges that offer greater transparency, some that offer greater detail and a few that offer more subtle musical textures. There are very few that can get even close to the Kuzma’s substance, presence, coherence and, yes, that word again, sense of musical purpose.

The CAR-50 goes straight past the facts of the performance, taking them so easily in its stride that it seemingly takes them for granted, cutting straight to the sense behind them. That focus on the meaning in the music also extends to its character. Elvis Costello is unmistakable in his Englishness, just as the Rave Ups are equally obviously American, the quintessentially French source material for Sine Qua Non [Coup Perdu CPLP001] survives its rearrangement for jazz quartet and strings, the imposition of bandoneon and guitar. Somehow it is still clearly, unmistakably French in nature -- at least it is when you play it with the Kuzma. Ultimately, this musical honesty, its faithful reproduction of not just the musical notes but their tone and accent too, is the CAR-50’s greatest attribute. It’s not the first thing that strikes you, but it’s amazing how you get used to it the longer you listen -- and miss it when it’s gone.

et’s not forget that a cartridge is, just like a loudspeaker, a transducer. It takes energy in one form and converts it to another. Along the way, we hope that it doesn’t bend it too far out of shape, because once the damage is done, it’s unrecoverable.

What the CAR-50 does is retain the structural integrity of that precious musical information better than any cartridge at or near the price. It preserves the timing cues, relative energy and spatial relationships that govern the original performance, giving the rest of the system a fighting chance of reproducing them -- and us a way better chance of appreciating them. It doesn’t exaggerate or enhance, shape or elevate; it’s not bright or shrill, and it doesn’t exhibit the characteristic rising top end that afflicts so many of the more "impressive" moving-coil cartridges.

But let’s also not forget that price has never been a guarantee of quality, in audio or anything else -- and less so with cartridges than almost any other product category. In flagship terms, the CAR-50’s asking price is surprisingly modest, yet like that other recent musical gem, the Lyra Etna, it has a balance of virtues that sits it comfortably alongside the most expensive cartridges out there -- and, in musical terms, ahead of most of them. If you value substance, musical and physical, over the more esoteric or academic aspects of musical performance, the Kuzma CAR-50 will be, quite literally, music to your ears -- and a bargain too.