Custom-Made Ebony Wood Headshell for Clearaudio Concept Tonearms / Turntables

Custom-Made Ebony Wood Headshell for Clearaudio Concept Tonearms / Turntables

A headshell made of ebony wood on a Clearaudio tonearm and turntable delivers a tight, dense, and highly controlled sonic character — combining natural musical warmth with exceptional focus and authority.

🎧 Ebony Headshell Sound Characteristics on Clearaudio Arm

🪵 Why Ebony Sounds This Way

• Extremely dense and stiff hardwood (≈1.1–1.4 g/cm³)
  → Excellent at suppressing unwanted resonances and microvibrations

• Low internal damping compared to oily woods (like cocobolo)
  → Preserves energy and dynamics

• High natural acoustic reflectivity
  → Enhances clarity, particularly in the midband

🎯 In Clearaudio System Context

Clearaudio arms (like Satisfy Carbon, Tracer, or Magnify) are already fast and low-mass with high resolution. The ebony headshell complements that:

• Adds blackness between notes, more "space" in silence

• Emphasizes control and focus, great for complex music or electronic genres

• Balances bright or overly open cartridges (e.g. Clearaudio MM, some AT MCs)

✅ Best For:

• Jazz, chamber music, electronic, minimal, prog, piano recordings

• Listeners who value precision, contrast, and articulation

• Neutral to bright setups that benefit from grounding and solidity

⚠️ Considerations:

• Not as "romantic" or harmonically rich as cocobolo or rosewood

• Slightly heavier — check tonearm effective mass compatibility

• May sound dry or analytical with already dry cartridges (e.g. Ortofon 2M Black)

🔚 Verdict:

An ebony headshell on a Clearaudio arm delivers serious control, clean energy, and ultra-low resonance coloration. If you're after clarity, punch, and authority without harshness — ebony is a studio-grade material in musical disguise.