GRADO Timbre Platinium 4 cartridge

The Timbre Series from Grado Labs has been designed to reveal the tonal character, texture, and emotional depth of every recording. Each model combines a handcrafted wooden body with carefully selected internal components, delivering an ideal balance between precision and musicality for a sound that is both detailed and expressive.

Grado Timbre Platinum 4: Technology

The Grado Platinum 4 is built around Joseph Grado’s patented Moving Iron (MI) technology. The cartridges of the Timbre Series demonstrate how an alternative transducer design can provide exceptional musicality and resolution while maintaining a comfortable output level.

The Platinum 4 features a bonded elliptical diamond stylus mounted on a hollow aluminum cantilever. The elliptical profile ensures accurate groove contact and precise tracking, while the aluminum cantilever contributes to stable and controlled reproduction of musical information. This combination delivers clarity, balance, and consistency across a wide range of recordings.

Thanks to its Moving Iron design, the Platinum 4 benefits from a fixed-coil structure while maintaining an extremely low moving mass. This architecture ensures a stable and consistent signal with excellent transient response. The carefully matched stylus and cantilever assembly is complemented by ultra-pure 6N OCC copper coils, selected for their exceptional conductivity and consistency.

Each cartridge undergoes a cryogenic treatment process and receives internal damping to reduce unwanted resonances and preserve the integrity of the audio signal.

Grado Timbre Platinum 4: Body

The Grado Platinum 4 belongs to the prestigious Timbre Series and features a body machined from a solid block of Mediterranean olive wood.

This carefully selected material has been optimized to deliver a distinctive sonic character while maintaining the control and consistency expected from the Timbre range. Mediterranean olive wood was chosen for its excellent resonance-control properties and its contribution to the cartridge’s tonal balance.

Its structure promotes stable playback and consistent performance with a wide variety of tonearms, while also contributing to the cartridge’s rich and natural presentation.

Grado Timbre Platinum 4: Sound Performance

The Grado Platinum 4 is the second model in the Timbre Series, offering many of the sonic qualities and craftsmanship associated with Grado’s renowned wooden-body cartridges.

Its presentation is balanced, musical, and engaging while preserving the warm and natural character that has made Grado cartridges so popular among vinyl enthusiasts.

The Platinum 4 reproduces music with an appealing combination of clarity and warmth. Precision is accompanied by smooth, natural highs that remain refined and fatigue-free. The midrange is rich in texture and realism, giving voices and acoustic instruments a convincing sense of presence and authenticity.

Bass frequencies are articulate, well-defined, and controlled, providing a solid foundation without sacrificing musical flow.

Compared with the Opus 4, the Platinum 4 delivers greater transparency, improved dynamics, and enhanced resolution while retaining the signature warmth and tonal richness of the Grado sound. The soundstage is spacious and immersive, creating an engaging and emotionally involving listening experience.

Like all Grado cartridges, the Platinum 4 prioritizes musicality, tonal density, and listening pleasure over strict analytical neutrality. It is particularly well suited to listeners who appreciate warm, inviting, and slightly vintage-sounding performances.

Note: Grado Moving Iron cartridges may produce a slight hum ("Grado Hum") with certain turntables or motor designs. This phenomenon is not systematic, but compatibility with your turntable should be verified before purchase.