Maestro V2

The Maestro V2 is a moving-magnet cartridge from the clearaudio MM V2 series. Its body is made of hand-polished ebony, chosen as a low-resonance base. The design aims to keep moving mass low, uses a HD grinding technique for the stylus and applies damping to the pickup system.

The stylus is a Shibata diamond cut mounted on a boron cantilever. The cartridge has a nominal output of about 3.6 mV and a recommended tracking force of 2.2 g ± 0.3 g. Each cartridge is measured on four levels and hand-selected, which is intended to keep the stereo channels well matched and limit phase and transient distortion.

It is loaded with 47 kΩ and 100 pF, as is usual for MM cartridges, so it connects to a standard MM phono input. The series is described as working with all common tonearms. Operating instructions are available as a bilingual English/German download, and the maker gives a two-year warranty when the warranty card is returned within 14 days of purchase.