In the 1980s Herb Reichert bought and sold used Garrard and Thorens turntables, and his hands shook at any photo of an EMT 927 or 930. Both were radio-station machines, and the 927's platter looked to him like a mag wheel from a German touring car. EMT's cartridges come from the same working world. Nick Tate of Hi-Fi News points to the small gold point on the JSD 6 that shows where the stylus will drop, for easy cueing by hand. They are moving coil cartridges, which make their signal from tiny coils that move with the stylus, and most high-end designs of that kind put out a very faint signal. EMT's put out several times more, Ekkehard Strauss notes. Jack Roberts of Dagogo describes the EMT house sound as "Big, substantial, full of color, and with a midrange that just won't quit." EMT suits listeners who want drive and presence from any record.

The way in is the HSD 006, which Michael Lavorgna describes as one of EMT's entry-level cartridges for the home and calls "an exciting cartridge in the best sense of the word." The step up is the JSD 5 or JSD 6, which share a body and differ in their styli. Match the arm first, since these cartridges suit heavier tonearms, and Strauss hit the sweet spot with an arm of about 18 grams of effective mass. Michael Fremer says EMT cartridges like step-up transformers, and Reichert preferred the JSD 6 through a Lundahl step-up into a tube phono stage. EMT recommends a load of 200 to 300 ohms, and Reichert settled on 200. Each cartridge ships with its own measured frequency response chart. If you want the full EMT system, Ken Micallef found the 928 II turntable sounded cleaner and louder on its internal battery alone.

Elektromesstechnik began in Berlin under Wilhelm Franz as a maker of measurement equipment for broadcasters. Its first turntable, the 927 of 1951, had a 17-inch platter big enough for the 16-inch transcription discs of radio, and by 1959 the 927 and 930 were in broadcast studios around the world. The 140 plate reverb of 1957 hung a thin steel plate in a frame and picked up its vibrations, and Abbey Road installed four of them in the late 1950s. EMT started making cartridges in 1959, and the TSD 15 followed in 1965. Tate notes that it was used in European studios including Abbey Road, and Art Dudley called it "truly the greatest phono-cartridge all-arounder I've heard." The cartridges are now built by hand in Turbenthal, Switzerland, in a former spinning mill from 1833. On a visit, Fremer was asked to adjust a cartridge's damping under a microscope and was too afraid of breaking it to push hard enough. Reviewing the 912-HI arm with a JSD 6, Reichert played more records in six weeks than he had in the previous six months.