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Editors' Choice Award 2024 – The Absolute Sound Magazine
"Very Highly Recommended!" - h-ifi+ Magazine
"Cartridge of the Year" Award Winner – The Absolute Sound Magazine
"Should Be Required Listening"
The Maestro V2 Ebony phono cartridge is Clearaudio's best-selling MM cartridge for over a decade. What distinguishes the Maestro and makes it unique is the high quality line contact diamond stylus and boron cantilever, parts commonly found on top Moving Coil cartridges. In conjunction with the resonance optimized Ebony wood body and efficient generator, you get the best of all sonic worlds.
Detail, resolution, and trackability combine with a natural tonal balance and a mid-hall perspective. The high output level allows use directly into MM type phono stages creating accurate dynamic swings and visceral slam. A wide and tall soundstage with specific focus draws you into the musical performance. The Maestro V2 Ebony is a favorite match for the Concept with Satisfy Black tonearm.
Award-Winning Performance
The Absolute Sound magazine honored the Maestro V2 Ebony with an Editors' Choice Award for 2024.
"The successor to the Maestro Wood, the Maestro V2 Ebony is an improvement in every way. With a higher 4.2mV output and an ultra-low-mass Micro HD stylus on a solid boron cantilever, the Ebony brings symphonic recordings to life, unifying each orchestral section into the greater whole. Low-level detail is speedily resolved. As musical as they come…
Additionally, the Maestro V2 was named 2013 Phono Cartridge of the Year by The Absolute Sound magazine. According to Neil Gader, "Clearaudio has crafted a better cartridge from every sonic perspective… the Maestro V2 Ebony should be required listening for moving-magnet and moving-coil fans alike."
"Smart Enough to Do It All"
"While the Maestro excels with driving, pumping music like MM cartridges are reputed to do, I found that the real strength of the Maestro cartridge is the ability to control its power and still achieve a neutral canvas for the other aspects of my music regardless of genre," observes Buzz Hughes, hi-fi+ magazine.
"The product has an uncanny ability to sense the desired feel and interject a level of intelligence into your LP playback. The Maestro is one of those special cartridges that is smart enough to do it all and makes you want to go buy more LPs instead of more equipment. Very highly recommended!"
Precision Engineering in Pursuit of the Best Sound
The Clearaudio V2 moving magnet cartridges are meticulously measured, analysed, and hand-selected into four performance levels. In this way Clearaudio achieves the best stereo channel matching, minimum phase error and distortion, flattest frequency response and highest dynamic range at each price point.
The cartridges produce an audiophile sound of superlative quality – spatially detailed and vividly textured, with bass that does not wallow and treble that is not harsh. The models of the Clearaudio MM V2 series provide outstanding sound quality on all current tonearms.
With the exception of the MM concept V2, which is made of aluminum, all the cartridges in this series are made with housings of hand-polished ebony – the key to record-breaking weight values.
"I Never Felt I Was Missing Anything"
"In the months I spent listening to Clearaudio's Maestro V2, I never felt I was missing anything," cocludes Michael Fremer in Stereophile. Instead, I was given an entirely different perspective on some very familiar recordings. Can a greater compliment be paid a $1200 moving-magnet cartridge? "
