Grado MI Master4

The Grado Master4 sits near the top of Grado Labs' Timbre Series, hand-assembled in Brooklyn, New York. It is a high-end moving iron (MI) phono cartridge designed for audiophiles seeking moving-coil speed and detail paired with the rich, natural warmth characteristic of wood-body cartridges.

Core Technologies & Design

• American Osage Wood Body: The cartridge is housed in a handcrafted American Osage wood body. This extremely dense domestic hardwood naturally damps internal resonances without adding excess mass, giving the cartridge its controlled, biological warmth.

• Machined Boron Cantilever: Upgraded from the lower Sonata4 and Platinum4 models (which use aluminum), the Master4 features a machined boron cantilever with a 5-piece OTL (Optimized Transmission Line) assembly. Boron's extreme rigidity-to-weight ratio reduces tip mass, allowing faster transient response and improved tracking accuracy.
• Nude Elliptical Diamond Stylus: Pairs with the boron cantilever to extract deep detail and complex harmonics from record grooves while keeping surface noise low.
• Flux-Bridger Moving Iron Design: Utilizes Grado's patented moving iron generator alongside cryogenically treated, 6N OCC (ultra-high-purity continuous cast) copper coils. This design offers lower effective moving mass than standard Moving Magnet (MM) cartridges.