GRADO Timbre Sonata 4 cartridge

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

Grado Timbre Sonata 4: Technology

The Grado Sonata 4 is based on Joseph Grado’s patented Moving Iron (MI) technology. The cartridges in the Timbre Series demonstrate that an alternative transducer design can provide outstanding musicality, resolution, and tonal accuracy while maintaining a healthy output level.

The Sonata 4 features a nude elliptical diamond stylus mounted on a custom aluminum cantilever. The nude elliptical profile ensures highly accurate groove contact and excellent tracking performance, while the aluminum cantilever contributes to stable, controlled, and detailed reproduction of musical information. This carefully optimized combination delivers clarity, balance, and natural musical flow across a wide variety of recordings.

Thanks to its Moving Iron architecture, the Sonata 4 combines a fixed-coil design with an extremely low moving mass. This results in a stable and consistent signal, excellent transient response, and enhanced retrieval of low-level detail.

The stylus and cantilever assembly is complemented by ultrapure 6N OCC copper coils selected for their exceptional conductivity and consistency. Each cartridge undergoes cryogenic treatment and receives internal damping to minimize unwanted resonances and preserve signal integrity.

Grado Timbre Sonata 4: Body

The Grado Sonata 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, consistency, and stability required for high-end vinyl playback. Mediterranean olive wood is particularly valued for its resonance-control properties and its contribution to the cartridge’s tonal balance and harmonic richness.

Its structure ensures stable tracking and consistent performance across a wide range of tonearms while contributing to the cartridge’s natural and engaging presentation.

Grado Timbre Sonata 4: Sound Performance

The Grado Sonata 4 offers a significantly more refined and ambitious performance than the Platinum 4. It represents a clear step forward in terms of resolution, soundstage reproduction, and overall musical sophistication.

The midrange is undoubtedly one of its greatest strengths. Vocals are reproduced with remarkable presence, texture, and realism, creating a strong emotional connection with the performance. Acoustic instruments benefit from outstanding harmonic richness and tonal authenticity.

The soundstage is expansive and exceptionally deep, delivering a highly holographic sense of space while maintaining excellent instrument separation and image stability.

High frequencies are more refined, open, and airy than those of the Platinum 4, revealing greater detail and subtlety while remaining smooth and free from harshness. Micro-details emerge naturally without ever sounding analytical or fatiguing.

Bass performance is tighter, faster, and more articulate, providing greater definition and dynamic contrast on bass lines and rhythmic passages.

Like all Grado cartridges, the Sonata 4 prioritizes musicality, tonal richness, and long-term listening enjoyment. Its presentation remains unmistakably analog, organic, and fatigue-free. It is ideally suited to listeners who appreciate warm, natural, slightly romantic, and vintage-inspired sound reproduction while seeking a higher level of refinement and realism.

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.