Le Son LS10 phono MC cartridge

Listening

Actually, we already know after listening to the first record we put on (the first pressing of Pink Floyd’s The Wall): this is good, very good. Where with the SL1 (the high output element) we still had some modest wishes in the highs and sharpness, with the Le Son LS10 we just want:

1) Listen to the whole record
2) Listen to even more records.

The Le Son LS10 picks up where the LS1 left off. The music has an airiness similar to a live experience. The moment the needle drops into the groove, we can “see” the room with our ears. The same is true (with good recordings) for the musicians.

It is also striking that it all sounds so natural. And that each pressing, each master or remaster is different. We hear that in every detail. The Le Son LS10 gets all the information out of the groove.

Déjà Vu

We put on the same CSNY record we listened to when reviewing SL1. We have version released around the release date of the album (1970). On Carry On, we hear even more tension and struggle in the harmony vocals that the Le Son LS10 pulls out. Incredibly, we are even more on the edge of the couch. What dynamics in just the voices alone. The digitized versions of this album don’t come close to this record that hasn’t even been cleaned yet.

Steven Wilson, Home Invasion: In Concert In The Royal Albert Hall

The track Pariah has been our favorite test of soundstage, the ability to reproduce a live concert and singer Ninet Tayeb’s voice for a few years. The track starts out fairly quiet and after 3 minutes it fills up more and more with guitar and synth lines. On the LP, it sounds, you guessed it, very natural and natural. The “raw edge” in Ninet Tayeb’s voice is there, but not emphatically displayed. The busy passages are busy but there remains overview.

The LS10 and the Grimm PW1

The listening notes described above were made with the Primare R35 phono preamp. A few weeks later, the new Grimm PW1 arrived, Grimm’s brand new phono preamp. With a price tag of €4,999 more than 3 times the price of the Rega R35. What would this do? That’s what you’re going to read in the review of the Grimm PW1…. spoiler: it’s quite a tasty combination!

Headshell

The cartridge holder (headshell) is the connection between the cartridge and the tone arm. The cartridge is attached to the headshell and the headshell to the tone arm. Sometimes the headshell is fixed to the arm, for tonearms of the Technics SL1200 for example, the headshell is loose. This is handy because it makes it easy to change the cartridge. Technics supplies a standard headshell with the turntable. What would a different headshell add to the sound quality? We can imagine that material properties such as rigidity and isolation of vibrations could benefit reproduction.

We wrote in a previous review on phono preamplifiers about how weak the electrical signal is coming from a cartridge. With a low output MC cartridge like the Le Son LS10, we are talking about an output voltage of 0.4mV, or 0.0004 volts. A phono preamp amplifies this to the line voltage of 1V, which amounts to a gain of 69dB. By comparison, in luminance this compares from a candlelight to a stadium-floodlight. Or a whisper to the sound pressure of an outdoor pop concert. Or the vibration of the needle in the groove amplified to an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale. With this kind of microvoltage, any resonance or intervention that provides better conduction matters.

Puck factor

A puck causes the record to lie tighter on the platter, so the record resonates less, the needle enters the groove tighter. When the master plate (the lacquer) is cut, it is vacuumed; we have also seen an exclusive turntable that does this. Should you also want this at home, we point out that the compressor must be in a different room. Just saying.

A puck will also get you a long way. To test this, we purchased a real hockey puck and drilled a hole in the middle of it. The result is – really! – astounding. Especially the bass reproduction improves enormously. In tightness, depth, texture. It shows once again that small interventions in phono amplification can have major effects, for better or worse.

C’est le son qui fait la musique

Back to the Le Son LS10mkII. We already wrote that everything sounds natural and natural. The tendency of us reviewers to look for what we are missing is not even triggered. The LS10mkII brings a kind of tranquility to the room because apparently everything falls into place. Literally and figuratively. We have had the opportunity to listen to a lot of vinyl over the past few years and what the LS10mkII performs is truly extraordinary. Especially for the price. Of course, 900 euros for an element is no box office bargain, but for a low output moving coil the prices run high. From the well-known brands Ortofon and Rega, the top models cost €5,000-6,000 and from an exclusive brand like Koetsu it’s about €10,000-15,000. We think Le Son comes a long way with the LS10, noting that it is not only the cartridge that makes the music, but also the turntable (motor, platter, plinth), tone arm and not to forget the puck!

After publication, this review has been corrected on the estimated life cycle of the stylus, which is around 1,000-1,500 instead of the 10,000 hours mentioned in the first version.