EMT TSD-15
A professional phono cartridge with a magnifying lens and a reputation for a flat, resonance-free top end.
Overview
The TSD-15 is a stereo moving-coil cartridge from EMT, built for use with the company's 155 or 153 preamplifiers. It is one of a trio. The TMD25 and TMD65 are the mono siblings, differing in stylus profile for wider standard grooves. All of them belong to what EMT called its "T series." Period documentation singles out the "magnifying lens," an internal element EMT specified for these cartridges. It sounds like marketing until you read how the cartridge was actually received.
The numbers are modest on paper — 20 Hz to 20 kHz overall, held to ±2 dB from 40 Hz to 12.5 kHz — but a cartridge that stays within a couple of dB across most of the audible band, and does so without a treble peak, is doing something meaningful for a professional playback chain.
Output is low, as expected for a moving-coil of this class: 0.15 mV per cm/s. That is why EMT tied the cartridge to its dedicated preamps. It is not a plug-into-any-phono-stage cartridge. Crosstalk is specified at less than 25 dB at 1 kHz, compliance at 12 × 10⁻⁶ cm/dyne, and vertical tracking angle at 15°. The stylus is a 15 µm diamond, tracking force 2 to 3 grams. None of these are extreme numbers. They suit a cartridge designed to sit in a broadcast turntable and behave predictably for years.
The TSD-15 turns up across EMT's professional lineup. It was the cartridge referenced in the EMT 928 playback system advertising of the mid-1970s, paired with a micro-sensitive lowering device. It also appears in the manufacturer's specification for the EMT 950 turntable system as the cartridge option. The 950's plug-in amplifier cards list input sensitivity of 0.2 to 1 mV specifically for EMT T series pickups. The EMT 928 advertising of the period described the TSD 15 as fitted with a micro-sensitive lowering device, as noted in Studio-Sound (June 1975, p.13).
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