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Recommended Component 2025 – Stereophile
Reviewers' Choice Award - soundstageaccess.com
Applause Award - stereonet.com
Faster, More Direct, and More Accurate Performance
Wellfleet is Sumiko's newest addition to its Rainier collection of MM moving magnet phono cartridges. With the Wellfleet, Sumiko has applied and upgraded its award-winning design of the Moonstone cartridge, retuning the suspension for optimal performance of a nude elliptical diamond with the existing generator and resonance-optimized housing found in the rest of the Rainier series.
With the Wellfleet, vocals are immediate, clear, and detailed, the warmth of human vocal work becomes more apparent with hints of rasp and emphasized subtleties, boosted by tight and well controlled bass. Backing vocals become easier to discern, and the listener is able to identify distinct instrumentation such as the rattle of snare wires, or the woody twang of a vintage acoustic guitars. Listeners will hear an improvement in surface noise and sense a more distanced backdrop, facilitating a deeply suspended image.
"Recommended Component" Honors
Stereophile honored the Sumiko Wellfleet by awarding it the magazine's coveted Recommend Component status for 2025.
According to Stereophile, "MF [Michael Fremer] noted that this affordable MM cartridge's most attractive qualities were 'see-through transparency, transient clarity, and precision in the mid and upper frequencies' and found the sound 'completely free of edgy artifacts, grain, and grit.'"
"The Best-Sounding Cartridge I’ve Ever Had"
"The Wellfleet tops them all. It is by all measures, the best-sounding cartridge I’ve ever had in my system," raves Thom Moon, honoring the Wellfleet with a Reviewers' Choice Award from soundstageaccess.com, July 1, 2022.
"As I said, the Wellfleet has all the great qualities of the Sumiko Oyster Moonstone, honed to even finer precision. It’s certainly expensive as fixed-coil cartridges go; the cost for the cartridge alone is what many entry-level turntables (the usual focus of these reviews) tend to go for. But this is a cartridge to which you may aspire. It certainly fills that position with me."
Applause Award Honors
The Wellfleet also won an Applause Award from stereonet.com. "If you are already equipped with a Sumiko Moonstone that's coming to the end of its life, or indeed any of the Oyster range, the Wellfleet stylus upgrade will bring you even more of the things you have enjoyed; I have no doubt," reports Jay Garrett, stereonet.com, November 19, 2022.
"Even when compared with more expensive cartridges, its wide bandwidth, diligent detail retrieval, and ease of operation make it well worth an audition."
Highly Polished Nude Elliptical Stylus Increases Speed and Focus
Wellfleet utilizes a highly polished nude elliptical stylus, eliminating the bonding between the stylus tip and shank. With the new assembly, excessive mass in the shank is cut away to further reduce tip mass, resulting in a faster, more direct, and more accurate response of the stylus’ movement by the cantilever and magnet. Sonically, this increases speed and focuses central images, pulling them toward the listener with a heightened sense for detail.
Sumiko's Latest Oysters
Designed for discerning, value-minded audiophiles, Rainier, Olympia, Moonstone & Wellfleet supplement and complement Sumiko's existing range of Oysters. They build upon, enhance, and refine the sonic character that listeners worldwide have enjoyed for decades. Innovation in cartridge design addresses the problem of resonance — the things that need to happen around a generator to voice a cartridge with honesty. The housing disperses and dissipates resonance, making way for effortless, transparent sonics that are enlivened with intimate nuance.
The voicing is true to natural harmonics, space around voices and instruments, as well as their attack and decay. Unique to these four Oysters (not to mention Amethyst), experience a diminutive backdrop that bolsters sonic images with a degree of aptitude reminiscent of moving coil designs.
Easy Upgrade Path
Flexibility remains paramount in the Oyster series. Rainier owners can upgrade to Olympia, Moonstone and now Wellfleet with a simple stylus swap (and don't forget RS 78). Follow the upgrade path to experience the best of what this design has to offer.
Hand-Crafted in Japan
From Oyster to Reference, each Sumiko phono cartridge is crafted by hand in Yokohama, Japan — near the waters where the namesake Oysters dwell. Sumiko has selected by ear the finest materials that combine to deliver performance that has enlightened generations of listeners. Each design is thoroughly auditioned until perfected. Production is then executed by world-class cartridge makers with a collective eye for precision and quality. The result is a full horizon of cartridges eager to introduce themselves to your analog system.
