In Praise of the Empires - Empire 2000/S and Empire 2000E/III

Browse enough internet audio forums and sooner or later you are bound to come across a discussion about the old Empire moving magnet cartridges that were manufactured by the Empire Scientific Corporation in New York a long, long time ago. Often someone has picked up a second hand turntable that came with am Empire and they seeking help to find  new stylus for it. The surprising about these discussions is that nobody has a bad word to say about them. Comments range from "they're good" to "they're exceptional." A quick check of Ebay reinforces these views with some models of old Empire carts minus their stylus fetching tidy sums.

Intrigued by this, I recently purchased an Empire 2000/S from a seller in Canada. It was new old stock (NOS) and came in its original packaging, including a lovely black velvet gift box. Out of its box, the Empire 2000/S is a rather ungainly and ugly beast.

It  has a grey metal body and an odd black removable frame that allows it to be secured to the tonearm. Although, it has very little plastic in its consrtuction it looks  cheaply made.  Its specifications, however, are anything but cheap. The frequency response is 10-35,000Hz; it has a 0.2 x 0.7 elliptical nude diamond; and 30db channel separation. Still it did look like the mounting frame was inadvertently designed to capture resonance, vibrate like crazy and totally stuff up the tracking. The phrase "O ye of little faith" springs to mind. While it's not the easiest cartridge to mount - needs small screws and 3 hands - it is fairly straightforward to align once mounted.  As soon as the needle dropped into the groove, I knew this was something special.

The sound of music this thing reproduces is exceptional. There is a huge amount of detail, its incredibly well-balanced in the sense that there appears to be no over-emphasis of any of the frequencies. Bass, mid-range and top-end are all so smoothly working together. Sounds good? It is even better. Without a doubt this cartridge delivers one of the most 3D music sounds I have ever heard. Thanks to its channel separation, the stereo imaging and layering and positioning of vocals and musical instruments is simply superb.

A little bit of research revealed that there were a number of cartridges in the Empire 2000 series. Some further research revealed that there were in fact several different 2000 series produced by Empire. It was one of those companies that often used similar number series for different product lines several years apart. As well as the 2000/S, there was also a 2000X and a 2000Z.  And thanks to Mantra Audio in the UK I also managed to track down some information about a 2000 - 4000 series Empire produce.  In this series, 2000 designated the stereo cartridges and 4000 the quadraphonic cartridges. The specifications can be found here. The cartridges in this series all have gold-plated bodies. The 2000E/III was the top of the line of the stereo carts. It has a frequency response of 5-35,000Hz; channel separation of 35db and another nude 0.2 x 07 elliptical diamond stylus.

Pictured here, mounted on my Michell Tecnoarm, is a secondhand 2000E/III which I purchased on Ebay for $65. It shipped with a NOS Empire spherical stylus, not its original elliptical.  Yet still the sound was beautiful, revealing what great potential this cartridge had.  I have since replaced the spherical stylus with a reproduction of the original elliptical made by the famous Jico company in Japan. The level of detail revealed is quite staggering, once again the stereo imaging is exceptional.  While the 2000/S is one of the best cartridges I have heard, the 2000E/III with a greater channel separation and better bass response may just be the best I have heard.

It is certainly superior to a $600 current production cartridge made by a very famous brand; and its also threatening to best some of my beloved Denon MC cartridges, including a very nice Soundsmith rebuild.

Both these cartridges are simply stunning. The E/III has a slight edge over the 2000/S, but this may change over time as the 2000/S burns in. 




For the record, both cartridges were tested with a Graham Slee Genera, and the excellent performance I heard could well be because the Genera is a perfect match for these beautiful old cartridges, 

Edited June 2024: Great to see that this blog post is still serving as a reference for Empire metal body cartridges. I received a request for tracking force for the 2000/S, See images of specs below: 

The McChanson "Black Knight" Push-Pull Amplifier - A Sweet and Powerful 25 Watts Per Cahnnel

This is the lastest release from McChanson, a small one-man company run by valve guru Eric Chan in Sydney.  McChanson has long had a following among local musicians for his guitar and local stereophiles for his SET 300B and 6L6GC amplifiers.  His Push-Pull is a new creation,  inspired by Eric's desire to deliver a higher powered amplifier for those customers who just haven't got the speakers to work with SET. 

Eric describes this as his Super marzEt, the "super" designating that it pumps more power than marzE or marzEt which are both SET.  Typically, the best you can get from SET is around 5 watts, but the McChanson Push-Pull does 25 watts per channel. It is a dual mono block configuration combined in  a single chassis and using a single power transformer to maintain value for money.  Interstage transformers are for the coupling stage.  It has an external bias setting and, as with all of the McChanson 6L6GC amplifiers, there are a whole range of power valves you can swap into it, KT88s, EL34s being the most obvious ones.  But I am pretty sure it would also take a valve as obscure as the 250B. 

I haven't had the opportunity to hear this new addition of the McChanson line-up.  Like all of the McChanson amplifiers it is custom made when an order is placed and Eric works closely with the customer to ensure that he is delivering what they want.  The amplifier pictured was made for a customer in Tasmania.  When I contacted him for a comments on its performance he emailed me the following:


"The McChanson amp (the Black Knight) is just great, warm and sweet. The power of the meagre 25 watts is HUGE and I just can’t play it any louder than 1/3 volume which is too loud. It grips the music with so much gusto and clarity it just makes me grin from ear to ear, it’s scarily good..." 

Eric can be contacted through his McChanson Ebay store.