MIYAJIMA DESTINY REFERENCE MC CARTRIDGE

How do you want your music? Some classical fans may want less micro detail in favor of a more laid back, macro perspective to take in the entire orchestra, perhaps yielding a more judicious treatment of delicate woodwinds amidst the panoramic strings and brasses. To some lieder fans, tonal magnetism and fluidity of the human voice is non-negotiable, while piano fans may prefer a more immediate and dynamic presentation. There are cartridges out there known to capture one or more of these attributes, but are there any known to do it all? Every so often a cartridge manufacturer is able to create one that manages to impart a more well balanced presentation on classical music than most, albeit at a price not too many can afford, e.g., the Top Wing Suzaku. Rarer still is an artisanal effort on a small scale culminating in a design that turns the industry on its head. The $7,600 Miyajima Laboratory Destiny from Japan is one such precious example. Miyajima Laboratory headquarters is in its own three-story building in the city of Fukuoka, the major Japanese port city closest to the Korean Peninsula. The company is run by two generations of the family: Noriyuki, company founder and owner, plus a son and a daughter, along with three other staff. Currently, the company offers twenty-one products, including eight stereo cartridges, six mono cartridges, two stereo step-up transformers, one mono SUT, a passive preamp, an output-transformerless monoblock amplifier, a tube full-function preamp, and one intriguingly unique two-phono input active gain unit with volume control. The Miyajima Destiny moving-coil cartridge is created and assembled by 70-year-old company founder Noriyuki Miyajima himself. Noriyuki is also primarily responsible for developing new designs and updating exiting models. In his response to my question, “I do all the difficult work.” Miyajima Laboratory’s biggest claim to fame is the use of a patented technique called Cross-Ring that places the cantilever fulcrum at the center of the iron coil, versus placing it at the fore or aft, thus dispensing with the use of a connecting wire while harnessing the full magnetism of the core as excited by the cantilever.