The Dark Side of the Moon has become a parody of itself. I’m a huge Pink Floyd fan, but I don’t tend to listen to DSOTM because it’s been so ridiculously overplayed. I originally sat down in the Homogenix room intending to bide my time until I could get some information about this brand-new company’s line of cartridges. But “Time” rocketed out of these dramatic, odd horn speakers with such authority, and at such high levels, that it made me giggle. These horn speakers and this cartridge made me sit through the entirety of side 1. That’s saying something. There was huge power here, with minimal horn colorations. Deep bass, perhaps missing the ultimate extension, but tight as a fish’s ass. These are huge speakers in a small room, but my stars, did it work as a whole.
Looking deeper, I saw that the room was essentially built around the new Homogenix phono cartridges, which the company was premiering here at Audio Video Show 2024. The cartridges are striking in appearance, presenting as miniature Hellraiser puzzle boxes, perforated in an artistic, organic pattern.
There are four models, each with a micro-ridge stylus. The cartridge bodies are made from 500-year-old fir wood, and the perforated shells are made from metal. The shells are made by a custom jeweler, and the perforations are made using a laser.
The top model is the Blue (zł20,000, all prices in Polish zlotys), which has a sapphire cantilever and a patina-coated brass shell. The next model down is the Gold (zł10,000), which features a ruby cantilever and a shell made from gold-plated .930 silver. The Silver (zł8000) features a boron cantilever and a shell made from palladium-plated silver. The Black (zł6000) has a boron cantilever and a ruthenium-plated brass shell.
The Silver and Black cartridges employ cross-coil motors, while the Blue and Gold use square-coil motors. Other than the stylus, cantilever, and laser cutting of the shell, all construction and assembly is done in-house.
Those huge horn speakers were comprised of vintage drivers and assembled by Homogenix president Miroslaw Piekut, whom I had the opportunity to meet. Piekut has the thousand-yard stare of a seasoned sniper, which is appropriate, given that he actually assembles the cartridges—which is probably the most exacting manual-fabrication task in all of audio.
It’s disorienting to discover a new cartridge manufacturer. I kept asking the same question but in different ways. “You make the generators yourself? Really? In house? You don’t buy them?” Piekut gave me a wry grin as he answered in the affirmative to each variation of my question. I bet he gets that a lot.
I’m going to reach out to Homogenix about securing a review sample of one of its cartridges.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
