Short summary

A moving-coil cartridge with a rigid, nickel-coated 7075-grade aluminium body and a low-mass, stiff boron cantilever. A super-fine-line stylus retrieves fine detail, with aluminium-bronze threaded inserts, perfectly paired with the Linn Arko tonearm.

Key info

  • Moving coil cartridge w/ a super-fine-line stylus
  • Rigid nickel-coated 7075-grade aluminium body
  • Low-mass, stiff boron cantilever
  • Aluminium-bronze threaded inserts
  • Paired w/ the Arko tonearm
  • Sits above the Koil in the Linn range

Specifications

Phono cartridge specifications
Channel separation > 28dB
Vertical tracking force 2.0g

Description

Kendo is a modern martial art form; translated from the Japanese it means “way of the sword”. At Linn however, the word has unique connotations. Our sword is forged of boron, with a super-fine-line diamond tip. Our armour is nickel-coated, 7075-grade aluminium. Kendo is the eager apprentice to its master, Ekstatik; sharing the same values, and picking up many of its traits along the way.

Kendo is the outcome of our engineers’ efforts to capitalise on the elements of Ekstatik which work so well; using our tried-and-true, trickle-down development methodology to produce a more affordable, high-performance cartridge which retains the same core design principles and acoustic fingerprint.

Kendo possesses a rigid, nickel-coated 7075-grade aluminium body. This specific grade of aluminium matches that of our Arko tonearm, for which Kendo was designed to be the perfect partner. This facilitates superb material synergy throughout the tonearm system, and effectively banishes unwanted resonances away from the delicate generator, along the arm, and out through the sub-chassis.

Linn is a legendary Scottish hi-fi manufacturer best known for precision-built music systems, network players, amplifiers, loudspeakers and the legendary Linn Sondek LP12 turntable. Founded in Glasgow in 1973 by Ivor Tiefenbrun,…