EAT Crushes it. The New Jo No. 5 MC Cart has Reviewers Raving

Now at True Audiophile

“The EAT Jo No.5 MC Cartridge is the best overall performing MC cartridge I have heard in a long time, and the current “price/performance value” of the decade…at $1295, it challenges my favorite $3500 cartridge reference for best overall definition, imaging, and musicality. I cannot even suggest a cartridge at Jo’s price that comes close in overall performance.-- True Audiophile mini review

We must receive your used MC prior to sending you the new JoNo5. Otherwise, if you pay with a card and we do not receive your trade-in we will charge you the full price.

The EAT Jo No.5 MC Cartridge is sublime and a wondrous value not soon to be surpassed. My 50 years of audiophile listening tell me Jo fully deserves my highest number 1 recommendation! Welcome to America Jo!” - Bob Levy Positive Feedback

What more can we say. This is a striking cartridge from its unique color to its performance. Its fits with stellar products we show based on price/performance rather than hype. - TA

Looks Good Enough to E.A.T. JO No 5 Moving Coil Cartridge...The No 5 manages to be both rich sounding and exciting. Never snooze- inducing or “soft”. Definitely a fuller, richer, “meatier” sound that I remember from the Quintet Black, which was also relatively “full bodied” for a $1000 MC cartridge. Here you pay a little more and you get more fullness without paying the price of sludgy bass or rhythmic constipation..Michael Fremer Analog Planet, 2018

This cartridge is a 'must have' upgrade for any tuntable. The Jo No.5 is an elegant masterpiece, both sonically as well as visually.
The cartridge body and stylus guard are made of Polyamide produced by an additive manufacturing process which is called Selective Laser Sintering (SLS). This process sinters thin layers of powder with a laser to build the final structure. It comes in unmistakeable mint green color and features a truthful and immersive sound stage.

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“The EAT Jo No.5 MC Cartridge is the best overall performing MC cartridge I have heard in a long time, and the current “price/performance value” of the decade."

“ …at $1295, it challenges my favorite $3500 cartridge reference for best overall definition, imaging, and musicality. I cannot even suggest a cartridge at Jo’s price that comes close in overall performance.

The Jo gives up a small amount of depth and a bit of textural layering, while retrieving pinpoint imaging with a focus unmistakably improving upon my $3500 reference cartridge, and rivaling my $6000 cartridge. The Jo sings naturally with impressive, immersive realism. With no etch or lumpiness, I hear a reel-to-reel tape presentation, not an LP.

The Jo at .3 MV output had seriously powerful dynamic swings and snappy, exciting speed and rise times. I got lost in the music and forgot I was reviewing several times. Jo did smooth and sweet with the same authority. It even did rich and liquid where called for, a feat many expensive MC’s fail to do. Amazing. The Jo No.5 is a chameleon on a tonearm.

Breakthrough is a breakthrough, no matter how you spell it. The Jo No.5 is how I spell it right now. At $1295, unless you collect boxes, this is the cartridge to own. It sings with an authority, solidity, speed, and realism only available until now at triple the cost…For once, the audiophile consumer is the winner!

The EAT Jo No.5 MC Cartridge is the best overall performing MC cartridge I have heard in a long time, and the current “price/performance value" of the decade. It is not just a very good sounding cartridge. Jo is a cutting-edge high tech music machine enhancing the performance and erasing distortion! WOW! The Jo redefines the build quality and style of what is achievable, realistic to expect, and top tracking ability worth at least $3000. If Jo No.5 turns out to be the middle or bottom of the EAT cartridge model range, we will look forward to the “big bang” of an EAT stellar transducer extraordinaire!

The EAT Jo No.5 MC Cartridge is sublime and a wondrous value not soon to be surpassed. My 50 years of audiophile listening tell me Jo fully deserves my highest number 1 recommendation! Welcome to America Jo!”

Read the Entire Review Here

Looks Good Enough to E.A.T. JO No 5 Moving Coil Cartridge

Michael Fremer | Aug 16, 2018

This revolutionary cartridge comes in two flavors: plain and peanut. When the stylus wears out instead of having the cartridge re-tipped, you eat it. It melts in your mouth, not in your hands. Best for “mint” LPs, etc.

Seriously though, E.A.T.’s new JO No 5 is the European Audio Team’s second cartridge and rather than being a “revolutionary” design, it’s one that makes use of well-known technology and parts and its built by Ortofon to E.A.T.’s specifications.

As many of you know, the E.A.T. brand belongs to Jozefina Lichtenegger, wife of Pro-Ject founder Heinz, whom I’m told had a strong hand in this cartridge’s design. See review of E.A.T. B-Sharp turntable.

Ortofon’s Selective Laser body building techniques (SLM-melting using metal, SLS-sintering using Polymide plastic) allows the company to produce a wide range of body shapes. If you watch the interview I conducted at Munich High End 2018 with Leif Johannsen, Ortofon’s Chief of Acoustics and Technology, you’ll see him dump out onto a table a bag of possible SLS produced cartridge body shapes or more accurately, enclosures for the basic square Ortofon Quintet series body.

As with the Quintet line, which uses various combinations of styli, cantilevers, coils and magnet systems, OEM customers can do likewise. So, though the No5 is based on Ortofon’s Quintet Black, the Lichteneggers spent time auditioning various combinations of parts to determine the final sound of this cartridge, which is also affected by the shape and mass of the outer curvaceous body finished in delicious looking minty green.

You can say “looks don’t matter” but this is one cartridge that’s difficult to not want to just stare at!

More importantly, it’s a cartridge that makes it difficult to not want to just listen to. The JO No5 combines the richness and warmth of some other modestly priced MCs with a good deal of the detail and resolution produced by more expensive MCs with not a hint of the added edge, etch or grain that sometimes mars the performance of modestly priced MCs. Plus it’s a very good tracker, smoothly sailing through lateral 80 μm peak track 13 on Ortofon’s test record.

While the No 5 is based on the Quintet Black’s body platform (hidden by the hard outer shell) it differs in many ways. The standard Black features a Boron cantilever and Shibata stylus. The Noo 5 uses an aluminum cantilever to which is affixed a “Fine Line” stylus. The coil windings of 4N copper are different, the rubber suspension alignment is different and the compliance is somewhat lower to make it more compatible with E.A.T. Tonearms especially the C Note.

Like the Black, the Quintet’s output is .3mV and internal resistance is 5 ohms, with recommended loading at 20 ohms. E.A.T. claims each cartridge is hand- selected and that means some don’t make the cut.

The price is $1395 in the attractive wooden box, or $1295 in a simpler cardboard box. There’s also a discount packaged with an E.A.T. turntable.

I played symphonies 3, 5,7 and 9 of Sir Simon Rattle’s Beethoven Symphony cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic (review coming up) and found the sound rich, enveloping, harmonically “colorful” and spatially involving (it was recorded digitally with a pair of M/S microphones). Enough bite to the brass, with particularly full-bodied French Horns and super-stable imaging. It's also the cartridge I used to listen to the female vocals double LP I just reviewed and found it fully satisfying. Whatever the No 5 didn't do, I didn't really miss. In other words the No 5 never sounded like No 2 (sorry I couldn't resist).

The No 5 manages to be both rich sounding and exciting. Never snooze- inducing or “soft”. Definitely a fuller, richer, “meatier” sound that I remember from the Quintet Black, which was also relatively “full bodied” for a $1000 MC cartridge. Here you pay a little more and you get more fullness without paying the price of sludgy bass or rhythmic constipation. Yes, you can get faster and leaner performance elsewhere and for that matter, warmer and softer too. I found the E.A.T. JO No5 to provide an ideal balance between the two. It certainly is no match for the super-costly “super cartridges” out there now, but considering the price, it leaves very little on the ‘table and it’s among the best looking transducers you can buy at any price!

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Specifications

Stylus type: Nude Fine Line
Weight: 15g
Stylus tip radius: 8/40 μm
Frequency response: 20 - 20.000 Hz
Output voltage: 0.3 mV
Channel separation:>23dB @ 1kHz
Compliance dynamic/lateral: 15 μm/mN 2.1-2.5 g
Tracking force range: 2.1-2.5 g
Recommended tracking force: 2.3 g
Tracking angle: 20°
Coil wire material: Pure 4N copper
Recommended load resistance: >20Ω

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