Starling

About the Starling

The Sumiko Starling is a meticulously engineered flagship moving coil cartridge from Sumiko's Reference Series. It features an open-architecture design that minimizes resonance, achieved through a CNC-milled high-grade aluminum mounting plate and a resonance-reducing body. The cartridge uses a long-grain boron cantilever paired with a low-mass Micro-Ridge diamond stylus, providing superior energy transfer and detailed sound reproduction. It delivers a dynamic linearity across the entire frequency spectrum, allowing it to handle demanding musical passages with poise and drive. The suspension system is made of synthetic rubber, optimized for controlled acoustic performance and longevity. Handmade in Japan, each cartridge undergoes hand calibration and testing with test records to ensure high fidelity and tracking ability. It is a low output moving coil cartridge with an output voltage of 0.5mV, suitable for pairing with high-end phono stages.