E.A.T. - European Audio Team Jo N°8 Cartridge
The Jo N°8 brings vinyl alive with expansive imaging, lightning-fast transients and richly textured detail. HiFi News heard a vast, precisely placed stage and muscular drive, while Positive Feedback praised its creamy vocals, deep bass definition and unforced musical cohesion. Its Shibata/boron design makes this a seriously revealing, luxurious moving-coil contender.
WATT RECOMMENDS
Save your favorites. Compare them anytime.
Create a free HiFi Hub account to save products to your Wishlist and compare your favorites side by side.
Deliciously Crispy
Sound Quality
95/100
Build Quality
91/100
Features Usability
84/100
Value for Money
96/100
Pros
Expansive, precisely organised soundstage with convincingly placed instruments and abundant air.
Excellent transient speed, punch and weight, with strong recovery on energetic music.
High-resolution retrieval uncovers fine instrumental textures and low-level information without sacrificing musical coherence.
Straightforward mounting, helped by a robust body, protected mechanism and well-spaced colour-coded pins.
Cons
Its gently warm balance may be excessive with single-ended-triode amplification or already warm partnering electronics.
The substantial cartridge body can cause clearance or alignment issues on some fixed-headshell tonearms.
WATT RECOMMENDS
Save your favorites. Compare them anytime.
Create a free HiFi Hub account to save products to your Wishlist and compare your favorites side by side.
What Reviewers Are Saying
SOUND QUALITY PERFORMANCE 95/100
Reviewers describe an unusually refined, involving and musically persuasive presentation, combining warmth and body with very high resolution. Its spatial performance, transient precision and ability to keep complex recordings coherent are repeatedly singled out, though one reviewer notes that its warm balance may not suit every amplifier partnership.
Overall Sound
96/100
Gary Lea found the Jo N°8 exceptionally alive from the outset, with creamy yet highly detailed vocals, accurate midrange reproduction, realistic cymbal decay and impactful bass. Ken Kessler called it head-and-shoulders above much of the MC competition, praising its realism, musicality, transient speed, weight and refinement; his only tonal reservation was a warm lean that could become excessive with some single-ended-triode systems.
Tracking Retrieval
94/100
The nude Shibata/boron assembly is backed by strong listening evidence: Lea says it retrieves information deep in the groove with clarity and exposes fine instrumental texture. Kessler reported no mistracking even at 2g and found that it uncovered tiny details other cartridges left buried, while retaining speed and composure on demanding material.
Soundstage Imaging
96/100
Both reviews are emphatic about placement and scale. Lea heard a compact jazz-club stage with tangible air, depth and clearly located musicians, while Kessler described images extending beyond the speakers and instruments occupying convincing recording-site positions within an expanded stage.
FEATURES USABILITY PERFORMANCE 84/100
Tonearm compatibility / system fit.
Tonearm Compatibility
84/100
Reviewers found installation notably straightforward, helped by the protected body and clearly arranged pins, and Kessler considers the cartridge broadly usable across arms. It is optimised for E.A.T.'s F-Note and recommended Graham or Ortofon arms, however, and its substantial dimensions may create clearance or alignment difficulties on some fixed-headshell arms; as a 0.3mV MC, it also needs an appropriately capable phono stage.
Assessments of Build Quality, Usability, and Overall Propositions.
Build Quality
91/100
The Jo N°8 uses a nude Shibata stylus on a boron cantilever in a solid chestnut body with an aluminium core. Reviewers also praise its protected mechanism, comfortable handling, sturdy mounting surface and well-spaced colour-coded pins; the large body is the principal practical compromise.
Value for Money
96/100
At the cited $2,495 price, Lea considered the Jo N°8 decisively ahead of cartridges below its cost and competitive with the great majority of models selling for far more, including examples in a much higher price class. Kessler likewise felt E.A.T. had repeated the No5's achievement at a higher market level, delivering meaningful refinement rather than merely a more expensive version.
Reviews & Sources
Professional reviews and sources for this product's Watt'n Potatoes analysis.
Online Reviews & Mentions
YouTube Reviews
No reviews found yet
Forum Mentions
No forum mentions found yet
Specifications
- Stylus type
- Nude Shibata on Boron cantilever
- Weight
- 12,5g
- Frequency response
- 20 – 30.000 Hz (-3dB)
- Output voltage
- 0,3 mV
- Channel separation
- > 25 dB (1kHz), > 17 dB (15kHz)
- Compliance dynamic/lateral
- 15 μ m/mN
- Tracking force range
- 2,0-2,5 g (20-25 mN)
- Recommended tracking force
- 2,3g (23mN)
- Tracking angle
- 20°
- Coil wire material
- 8-Nines copper
- Internal impedance, DC resistance
- 5 Ohm
- Recommended load resistance
- > 15 Ohm
Manufacturer's Description — E.A.T. - European Audio Team
The Jo N°8 high-end performance moving-coil cartridge will extract more from the groove than previously imagined.
In 2018, E.A.T.'s Jo N°5 moving-coil cartridge raised the bar for affordable transducers capable of high-end performance. Reviewers around the world acknowledged that it was remarkable for a cartridge at its price point. But, they mused, what would E.A.T. deliver with no price constraints? According to founder and CEO Jozefina Lichtenegger, "Jo N°8 was created because of the demand to go one step further, following of the success of Jo N°5. Customers and distributors concurred that the design was an obvious candidate for more exclusive components, an even more carefully conducted, higher level of selection and – ultimately – a superlative, but inevitably more costly and exclusive precision-made body. We knew that this recipe would result in a wonderful-sounding transducer."
Use of the word "transducer" is the key to understanding the demands of the design criteria, with the recognition that a cartridge is just such a device: a turntable/cartridge is an electromechanical transducer that converts mechanical information into an electrical signal, working in exactly the opposite manner of a loudspeaker. This conversion is, in the opinion of E.A.T. the MOST CRITICAL element in an audio chain because any distortion or non-linearity in the amplification is ten times less than what occurs at the speakers or via the cartridge.
For the fastidious listener, any increase in one's investment in a fine cartridge is worthwhile. The benefits include the reduction of distortion to a minimum and the achievement of a perfectly flat frequency response. Accomplishing both is extremely demanding, requiring the utmost attention to detail, abetted by the use of only the highest quality materials.
But that is not enough: the designer must understand how to apply these in combination: the stylus, the cantilever, the bearing, the suspension, the "motor" and lastly, the body shell, working in perfect harmony. To elevate the already-exceptional perfor-mance of the N°5, E.A.T. has employed for the N°8 a nude Shibata stylus on a boron cantilever, contained in a matte-finished wooden body made of solid chestnut. A perfect match for the new F-Note tonearm, the Jo N°8 moving-coil cartridge will extract more from the groove than previously imagined.
Moving Coil Cartridge
- Moving Coil
- Nude Shibata
- Boron cantilever
- Elegant looks
- 8N pure copper coil wire
- Selection for smallest tolerances
- Special TPE suspension
- Dark Stabilized Chestnut / Aluminium body
- Exclusive realwood jewelery Box
Verified Dealers
Online Dealers
All Dealers
Zoom out the map to see more dealers
Authorized dealers for E.A.T. - European Audio Team Jo N°8 Cartridge
- Analogue Seduction — online and in-store — Whittlesey, England, United Kingdom (website)
- Art & Voice — online (website)
- Atelier 13 Audio — in-store — Forest Hills, Tennessee, United States (website)
- Audio Advice — online and in-store — Raleigh, North Carolina, United States (website)
- Audio Advisor — online and in-store — Michigan, United States (website)
- Audio Breakthroughs — in-store — Manhasset, New York, United States (website)
- Audio Creativ — in-store — Riedenburg, Bayern, Germany (website)
- Audio Lust — online and in-store — Mönchengladbach Ost, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany (website)
- Audio Natali — in-store — Montecatini Terme, Toscana, Italy (website)
- Audio Solutions — online and in-store — Indianapolis, Indiana, United States (website)
and 54 more verified dealers