shelter
Established in 1986, Shelter has been using traditional manufacturing techniques to manufacture high-end phono cartridges specialised in analogue audio. By skilled craftmanship, all Shelter MC phono cartridges are hand-made at a workshop in Japan and inspected by Yasuo Ozawa himself, the founder of Shelter.
Yasuo Ozawa was fascinated from childhood by the timbre of musical instruments. When he was in junior high school, he designed many tube amplifiers. Due to his interest in developing audio products, he majored in electrical engineering.
In 1972, he joined Fidelity Research and started to work as a phono cartridge designer. He was one of the designers of MC phono cartridges MCX-3 and MCX-5. In 1986, he became independent and had been designing and creating MC phono cartridge throughout his life.
Building his own audio company, Yasuo hopes to become dependent on a place of analogue audio to Shelter’s many enthusiasts. After understanding the high fidelity sound reproduction, the company knows that analogue playback is very sensitive. This is because the sound character quickly changes with only changing the screw that fixes the head-shell and the cartridge. The company realises that its products, especially the phono cartridge, need to maintain the smooth, warmth, and balmy sound character that don’t become weary for many years.