Enterprise Mk4 Tonearm
A statement of supreme musicality.
The Origin Live Enterprise tonearm is the object of glowing reviews, ownership delight and audiophile envy. Because phono cartridges cannot distinguish between groove modulations and resonance, Origin Live engineers have lavished the arm with meticulous anti-resonant treatments to the tube, headshell and counterweight. The acclaimed Dual Pivot Bearings help provide meticulous tracking. Interconnects and electrical contacts are exquisitely engineered. The result is effortless, natural sound – the ideal complement to Pure Fidelity turntables.
“Overall, this is a superb pick up arm with a grippingly musical sound and lovely rhythmic ability. It has wonderful tonal shading (an SME SeriesV sounds monochrome, by comparison) and deep soundstaging with masses of detail…”
~ David Price, Hi-Fi World
“If you are seriously into vinyl and have the table, cartridge and phono stage to do the arm justice, adding the Enterprise Mk4, would bring you to the end of your vinyl journey.” READ FULL REVIEW
~ Anthony Kershaw, Audiophilia
Aircraft alloy/carbon fibre arm tube. Every tonearm needs to hold your cartridge steady, free from any extraneous resonance or reflected vibration. The Enterprise Mk4 succeeds brilliantly with a high-grade aircraft alloy tube, stiffened with carbon fibre and further processed to defeat resonance. This frees up the cartridge to perform as it should, protected from the coloration of resonance and reflected vibration.
Larger-diameter, higher-strength, sleeved rear stub. This maximizes energy dissipation and improves counterweight stability, further protecting the cartridge from resonance.
Damped counterweight attachment. While the counterweight attachment holds the arm tube firmly, it’s also decoupled to minimize energy reflection back down the tube. High grade materials and a special dampening contribute to clearly audible improvement.
Counterweight fine adjuster enables you to set highly precise tracking force.
Headshell features improved de-coupling and lightweight finger-lift.
Sophisticated yoke decoupling further protects the music from resonance with several layers of isolation from the vertical bearings.
Dual Pivot Bearings. The Enterprise Mk4 provides a high-specification ceramic bearing to control tonearm motion on the horizontal axis. But vertical motion confronts designers with a daunting set of choices. Uni-pivot bearings offer extremely low friction, along with excellent definition and transparency. But their relative instability degrades bass performance. They can also be fiddly to set up and wobbly to cue. Some uni-pivot arms can literally be “knocked off their bearing.” To achieve the sonic benefits without all these limitations, Origin Live uses a pair of precisely rounded, ultra-hard tungsten carbide points held by gravity in a pair of radiused burnished steel cups. This allows the arm a tiny degree of motion in every direction except down. Gravity self-centers the points, sliding them into the bottom of the cups. As a result, vertical tonearm motion is incredibly smooth, with vanishingly low friction. Music is open and transparent, achieving the superb definition of uni-pivot arms, but without sacrificing bass. In addition, the arm is extremely robust. You can even hold it upside-down and nothing will fall off.
Ceramic ball bearings for horizontal movement achieve phenomenal precision for ultra-low friction, smooth tracking.
Mirror-finished yoke is coated in highly durable Chrome Nitride by the same supplier that serves the watch maker, Rolex.
Precise vertical tracking angle adjustment. A large, calibrated dial above the arm-board gives you easily-accessible, total control over VTA.
Azimuth Adjustment
Falling weight side bias. Compared to many other approaches, this classic anti-skate design reduces friction, reduces resonance and increases stability.
Internal Silver Hybrid wire uses a version of Origin Live’s acclaimed cable, combining silver wires configured together with copper Litz wires laid up in an advanced configuration. Cryogenic freezing reduces discontinuities in the conductors.
Silver-plated headshell clips. Slightly outperform gold.
Silver Hybrid external cable. The supplied 1-metre cable again combines cryogenically frozen silver with copper Litz wire for impeccable musicality.
Rhodium-plated single point RCA plugs. Single point contact reduces eddy currents while Rhodium provides an ultra-smooth surface for reliable contact.