Murasaki Co., Ltd. was established in July 2014 by Mr. Daisuke Asai. From the start it was involved in the import and distribution of three audio brands – Amazon Audio, Solid Core Audio and Durant Tonearms. In 2018 however, they also started to offer products under its own brand – two phono cartridges (mono and stereo) and a step up transformer. For this review we received a set consisting of the stereo MURASAKINO SUMILE MC cartridge and a NOBALA step up transformer.

“Sumile” and “Nobala” were awarded GOLD FINGERPRINT by High Fidelity

In Japanese audio manufacture, cartridges are one of the specialties. In fact, most cartridges today are made in the Land of the Rising Sun by a dozen or so exceptional craftsmen; or rather, artists. From time to time, even among their exclusive cadre some fresh blood must appear and this is the case for this test of Murasakino’s sensational debut. I must admit that when I received this pickup from the Polish distributor, it was a complete mystery to me. The name rang no bells. The presentation box was small and, as almost always with Japanese products, very nicely put together. The client immediately understands that this is a luxury product. Audiophiles treat packaging in different ways. Some believe that sophisticated elegant jobs are nothing but wasted money. Others want to feel special from the very beginning and appreciate that the maker treats them with respect and already expresses this in how the product arrives. While with an amplifier or loudspeaker, the most important feature of the packaging is strength so the innards reach the customer in perfect condition, smaller components such as cartridges or accessories like the beautifully packed Harmonix mat and record clamp are often small masterpieces. They definitely deserve more than a regular box. Especially when they come from Japan, one can assume that already this first contact will be exceptional. This was the case with the Murasakino Sumile MC which arrived in a simple, elegant but also intriguing box. And of great importance, it perfectly protected the delicate pickup inside.

This aspect was somewhat anticipated considering origin so the true surprise came after opening the box. Inside I found a cartridge of a rather exotic yet intriguing colour. Although the name Sumile would indicate what to expect if one spoke Japanese, I was entirely unprepared for a violet body with gold trim. This made it the most original looking cartridge I ever dealt with. Most look modest if not to inconspicuous at least to the layman’s untrained eye. In this case, Murasakino’s creator guaranteed his product the attention of anyone laying eyes on it. To be honest, neither violet nor gold are amongst my favourite colour yet still I fell in love with the Sumile MC at first sight, i.e. well before ever listening to it. Such a color choice could be considered provocative or teasing. Surely it sends a clear message to the competition: I am different and this is my advantage! So my adventure with this Japanese cartridge started like most Hitchcock movies—with an earthquake—and then added tension, although in this case it was rather relaxation and satisfaction, albeit built upon in layers.

Before I started my listening sessions, I decided to look for information about the designer. It was after all a rare case of a new brand arising from nowhere and beginning their presence in our market with a big bang meant to compete with the best of the most well-established colleagues. Mr. Daisuke Asai started his audio adventure when he built a tube amplifier in his university days. Later he worked at Denon Lab and then A&M Limited better known by their trade name AirTight. It was here under the guidance of Mr. Ishiguro where our designer would gather a large portion of his knowledge and experience. As if that weren’t enough, Asai-san is also an amateur musician who plays the oboe. I won’t need to convince the reader that intimate knowledge of the true sound of instruments is a huge asset when one designs and builds components which try to mimic live music. The time at A&M Limited allowed Mr. Daisuke to gather the necessary knowledge and experience but came at the cost of little if any free time for his own projects. Hence he finally made the tough decision to resign from AirTight and set up his own firm called Murasakino Ltd.

As one reads on the website, “… Sumile is not lavished with superfluous technologies or rare materials. Instead, through our commitment to fundamental quality, it is the ultimate analog product.” As the nomenclature Sumile MC gave away, this is a moving coil pickup. Let’s add right away very low internal impedance of just 1.2Ω achieved by a small number of coil turns. The solution seems simple but has consequences. A lower impedance means a lower output signal. In turn, that requires more gain in the associated phono preamplifier which leads to a higher possible level of undesirable noise hence distortion. It is possible of course to design an MC phonostage or stepup transformer of high quality and the market offers a few. After all, the Sumile MC isn’t the only pickup with low output voltage. However, slightly higher cartridge signal allows the user to choose their subsequent gain stage from a broader variety of available models. To avoid the need for unduly high gain, Mr. Asai made sure that despite low impedance, his product still offers a relatively high 0.35mV to work properly with almost any MC phono stage. Of course it does not change the fact that it should be paired with the best possible partner to blossom to its fullest potential.

The materials used in the construction of this cartridge were selected with the best performance in mind. Therefore the base of this pickup, i.e. the upper plate facing your head shell plus the inner part to which generator and coil attach are stainless steel and not aluminium as in most other cartridges. Steel is more rigid but also more difficult to machine, hence less popular than aluminium. In this case of a product aiming to compete with the best, the steel parts are gold plated. The idea came from wind instruments for which such a procedure is performed to obtain the desired resonant frequency of the material. This translates into a richer sound. Although I couldn’t find this info on the website, it seems that the outer violet body is aluminium. Sumile MC features a neodymium magnet, boron cantilever and semi-contact diamond stylus. It is also equipped with a removable stylus protector. In addition to the cartridge, the presentation box contains the screws and key necessary for mounting to a head shell.

My loaner was virginal so would take at least a few dozen hours to break in. Usually when you start with a new pickup, you hear limitations. The sound won’t be particularly open and instead somewhat foggy to miss details, lack richness and resolution, suffer lightweight poorly controlled bass etc. All these aspects turn around once the mechanics of the cartridge settle in and work optimally. So whenever I get a completely new pickup, I often use a special record from German specialist Clear Audio which accelerates break-in. Its special signals force the stylus and its suspension to work intensely. That accelerates reaching proper compliance.

This time curiosity won out since it’s not every day that I get to listen to a completely new product by a brand I never heard of which in this particular case had already made noise in a quite hierarchical market. After thorough setup using the Acoustical Systems SMARTractor template, I decided to sneak some initial impressions of this small violet piece of Japanese audio art. I installed it first on the Cantano T arm mounted on a Cantano W table. During this session I used my excellent GrandiNote Celio MkIV phonostage but also one of the best there is, the brilliant Tenor Audio Phono 1. Later I moved the Sumile MC to my JSikora Standard Max turntable with Acoustical Systems Aquilar tonearm and KBL Sound Red Eye Ultimate phono cable. I recently realized that I’ve already reviewed close to 1’000 different hifi components and that of those, only a very small percentage ever made such a huge first impression. On the short list which did, we’d find big names like Kondo’s Souga and Kagura, the Tenor Audio Phono 1, LampizatOr’s Golden Gate, Ypsilon’s VPS100, AirTight’s PC3 and perhaps two or three others. It’s worth noting that I received all of those fully broken in to work much to their advantage. As you can now appreciate, the Murasakino cartridge arrived with a prepaid membership card to my private club of most impressive components. The longer I listened, the more certain I was that it really belonged there.

These first impressions were very different from the usual experiences with other new cartridges. From the very first record I was amazed by the huge flow of information the stylus already extracted from the groove. The purity and transparency of the presentation were remarkable as well. This concerned mainly the upper range which was already incredibly resolving, open and airy yet smooth, without even a hint of aggression and—surprisingly because of the pickup’s newness—no grain. Any shortcomings if I could even call them that were primarily in the lower midrange and bass, which I perceived as lacking some weight and richness although control of the low end was already very good. Even during the period of a slight shift in tonal balance, I did not perceive the sound as too bright or dry. Resolution was impressive, the sound from the very beginning was nicely layered and even those deeper layers which more often than not lack precision were already rich with details. Although some aspects of the sound were not (yet) perfect, I decided not to lose any time with the Clear Audio break-in record. Instead I preferred to enjoy the music and in some cases even rediscover familiar titles.

Because of this, I could observe the break-in process over the next few days. The sound gradually saturated and gained weight, the lower bass initially only gently indicated grew to full power and slam and thus able to deliver even the great symphonic tutti or when AC/DC perform their energetic interpretation of Rock‘n’Roll. Gradually the tonal balance shifted down and finally it reached the nominal position known as neutral and remained there. Unlike in some cases of neutral components, I did not perceive the sound as cold. It was just exactly as it should have been: natural, fluid and coherent. The smallest changes during break-in took place in the treble. The incredible flow of information, openness and ingenious resolution remained but were supplemented with a sort of elegance or class which made me stop thinking about these features to instead enjoy the sophistication, delicacy and power (when needed) of the upper midrange and treble. Such a combination of sonic qualities may seem impossible but in this case the treble was sometimes velvety to wonderfully convey the delicacy of a sobbing violin only to equally convincingly portray the sharp, powerful, energetic, almost abrasive sound of a trumpet or the breathtaking performance of a drummer crushing his cymbals as though his life depended on it. In other words, the Murasakino Sumile MC was able to deliver relaxed, subtle refined sound but when needed also kicked, punched and bit hard for energetic, thrilling yet amazingly well controlled readings.

With the progress of break-in process, the Sumile MC further improved timbre differentiation and micro and macro dynamics. The already amazing flow of detail and subtleties kept growing to reveal, among other things, more and more hidden acoustic cues to an extent very few cartridges I know would compete with. It happens very rarely that a loaner reveals previously unknown details on recordings I know almost by heart so it was clear already at this stage that the Murasakino Sumile MC belonged to this unique category of audio products which not only manage to delight the listener with outstanding performance but elevate it to a new level of personal musical experience.

One of the elements that delighted me more and more with almost every album was this absolutely unforced, unrestricted delivery of virtually any music. It did not matter whether there were just two acoustic guitars, a solo vocal, a string quartet, a rock band or a huge symphony orchestra. The Sumile MC behaved like a duck on water regardless. The only condition to be met was at least good (not necessarily very good) recording/pressing quality and a decent physical condition of the vinyl. Whenever I placed such a record on the platter and lowered the stylus, be it RCA, Decca, Three Blind Mice or even Polish recordings, the Sumile MC extracted layer upon layer for a smooth, vivid and remarkably musical whole that kept a smile on my face for the entire day. In this regard it reminded me of my AirTight PC3 which also doesn’t care about music genres. Although the purchase of the PC3 at the time was a dream come true and only a very few cartridges were able to match or outperform it, this time I had no doubt that the Sumile MC played in another dimension. Good physical condition of the records mattered because it guaranteed a minimal amount of pops and cracks which, even where they appeared, did not come between me and the music. However, when I happened to use a dirty record or one with a significant scratch, the Murasakino quickly reminded me that it wasn’t a good idea.

Regardless of whether the Sumile MC worked the Cantano arm on the matching table or the Aquilar on my excellent JSikora, it delivered similar sky-is-the-limit sophistication, equally excellent insight into the music played and always kept me engaged. There were some differences of course. On my mass-loaded turntable and gimbaled arm, the sound seemed even more dynamic, rich and weighty. On the excellent Cantano with unipivot arm, the sound was even more open and the acoustics of many recordings presented in a more convincing way. That’s why on Rodrigo and Gabriela’s album with their amazingly dynamic guitars, I was reminded of their excellent Warsaw concert a little more convincingly by the JSikora. The presentation was incredibly powerful, vivid and edge of seat but also with absolute control over everything that happened on a small but realistically rendered stage. Many components are able to show the heavy-metal souls of these musicians but capturing this particular intensity of the performance, the evident chemistry between the players and this huge charge produced by just two acoustic guitars is something only the very best components/systems can deliver in such a realistic manner. My turntable with the excellent AirTight PC3 does it perfectly; or so I thought until the Sumile MC proved even better by extracting even more information from the groove for an even more exciting more present performance.

When it came to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the remarkable elegance, refinement and the Cantano’s ability to present even the deepest layers proved this turntable to be an even better partner for the Sumile for this type of classical music. Wonderful flow, perfect harmony of all instruments, lots of air between them, nicely conveyed emotions with the mood of each season all were advantages on this turntable. On my favorite Carmen with Leontyne Price, the power, energy and size of the orchestra were even more impressive on the Cantano. While the JSikora delighted with its immediacy, the huge soundstage was even deeper on the Cantano and the singers in the foreground were more tangible. All these differences were actually quite small and derived from the sonic qualities of these tables and arms. The Murasakino brilliantly displayed its key attributes of exceptional purity, transparency, lack of any coloration but stratospheric resolution regardless. Whether on the JSikora or Cantano, the Sumile MC played my favorite records as only a handful of top cartridges could (try to) match. Some of these recording never sounded this good before.

I could sum up this review in one simple sentence. This was the best cartridge I ever listened to. Period. Although I have not auditioned that many top competitors, I still dare claim that it is one of the best money can buy today. It’s expensive but offers a rare combination of features highly sought by those in pursuit of the ultimate sound. For many it will be reason enough to reach deep in their pockets and pay up. Again, this is an incredibly resolving cartridge. It delivers a pure, transparent and well-balanced reading which at the same time is beautifully smooth, musical and engaging. It perfectly differentiates even subtle changes in tonality, pitch and dynamics. When needed, it will deliver a refined nuanced performance to convey the richness and complexity of a beautiful voice or solo instrument. When asked to, it will burst with unrestricted energy to deliver with perfectly organized control the full power of a Rock band or orchestra. In each dimension, it casts a large precisely laid-out multi-layered soundstage whose deeper layers are only slightly less detailed than the foreground. Over the Sumile MC, three-dimensional phantom images seemed very present and tangible. I could almost feel the chemistry between musicians and easily got emotionally invested. The sound was rich, saturated, informative down to the tiniest subtleties yet details never stole the show. It was always the music at the centre of my attention because it was so exceptionally realistic and natural. Each session turned into a truly transcendental experience.

I wish I could witness more such sensational debuts in the future although I personally would prefer them to be more affordable. But this is how it goes in the real world. The efforts put into developing a product which delivers top performance for such an authentic, thrilling, immersive musical experience must be adequately rewarded. Once I set down my goal to own the AirTight PC3 cartridge, it took me a while to acquire it but here I am today: a happy owner. Now I have a new pursuit to one day own a Murasakino Sumile MC. It probably won’t happen soon but one day it should. If you’re in the market for an ultimate cartridge now, give the Sumile MC a try. It will definitely be worth your time and was most deserving of our award.

Original article: from 6moons.com by Marek Dyba

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