A hand-built Swiss moving coil that plays straight into a moving-magnet input, with the Glider's warm, honest voice.
The Glider SH is the high-output version of Benz Micro's long-running Glider S. It is one of the brand's classic open-body designs and is still made in limited numbers in Switzerland. Benz leaves off the housing and mounts its iron-cross generator directly in a slim aluminum chassis. That keeps moving mass and stored resonance to a minimum. A 0.28 mm solid boron cantilever carries a mirror-polished nude line-contact diamond. This is the kind of hardware usually found on cartridges costing far more.
Reviewers describe the Glider as honest. It adds a touch of warmth in the lower midrange and bass and keeps the treble airy, never dry or etched, with a surprising amount of low-level detail. At 2.5 mV, the SH runs into a standard MM phono input at 47 kΩ, so you don't need an MC stage or step-up transformer. That makes it an easy upgrade for an integrated amplifier or phono stage with only an MM input. It works best in a medium-mass tonearm. If your phono stage has MC gain, the Glider SL (0.4 mV) and Glider SM (0.8 mV) offer the same design.
| Type | High-output moving coil (MC), open body, MM-input compatible |
| Output | 2.5 mV (3.54 cm/s) |
| Internal impedance | 95 Ω |
| Recommended load | 47,000 Ω |
| Tracking force | 1.7–2.0 g (1.7–1.8 g optimum) |
| Dynamic compliance | 15 µm/mN |
| Tracking ability | 80 µm at 315 Hz, 2 g |
| Weight | 6.8 g |
| Stylus | Nude line-contact diamond, mirror polished (3 × 60 µm) |
| Cantilever | Solid boron rod, 0.28 mm |
| Frequency response | 20 Hz – 20 kHz ±1 dB |
| Channel separation | >35 dB at 1 kHz |
| Recommended tonearm | Medium mass |
| Break-in | About 40 hours |
| Also available | Glider SL (0.4 mV) and Glider SM (0.8 mV) |
Note: photo of SM shown.
Pearl Audio is an authorized Benz Micro dealer. Call or visit our Portland showroom to talk about matching a cartridge to your tonearm and phono stage.
