Blade of glory

In our high-output phono cartridges Group Test (HFC 503), the winner was the moving-magnet Sabre from Vertere. Building on the success of this product, the company has gone on to produce the new Dark Sabre. Founder and chief designer, Touraj Moghaddam, says it offers significant improvements over its predecessor, the approach to design harking back to first principles, but his products benefit from years of experimentation and experience. As with the XtraX, the company’s premium moving-coil cartridge, the Dark Sabre is now fitted with a single crystal, nude micro elliptical diamond and dual aluminium telescopic cantilever to offer significant improvements on the Sabre’s diamond glued into an aluminium tube. The square shank diamond assembly maximises alignment precision, consistency and rigidity. The telescopic aluminium tube cantilever utilises two different aluminium materials…