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In Reply to: RE: what an eye opener posted by xaudiomanx on March 09, 2025 at 09:34:00
Do you mean an Audio Technica 740ML or 760SLC? I am not familiar with a 746 so was just wondering!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Follow Ups:
yes! Sorry!
IMO AT have more consistent product quality and superlative tracking ability. The ML stylus is (in my opinion) the best technical design of the commonly available tip profiles, so if you bought the 740ML, don't be in a rush to return it. The ML will enable consistent performance (assuming you align it optimally to begin with) all the way to the inner grooves. It is the only stylus profile (apart from the fine cut Ogura PA (3x30um)) which will fully reproduce the bandwidth at all signal levels (only limited by the tip mass) all the way to the inner grooves - the ML has half the scanning radius of the Shibata and has a straight contact line compared to the curving line of the Shibata which contributes to the characteristic Shibata sound.
Ortofon 2M styli are not up to the same technical standard or production quality/consistency in my opinion so it really comes down to whether you can get along with the AT MM voicing compared to the Ortofon.
I have lots of MM cartridges from both (as well as AT MCs), but I use them for transcription purposes and apply EQ to correct response anomalies so my priorities are more on technical performance so I would lean to the AT but I can get along with either sonically.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
I was interested in your comments about quality control over at ortofon.
one of the reasons I recently purchased a 2m black lvb is that when listening to a recent audio forum , ortofon was mentioned as having higher than average build quality, and all three panelists agreed. I figured they had a lot more recent industry knowledge than myself, so that small comment, that all three agreed to, influenced my buying decision . I was concerned about a few negative comments I had read about general low quality control among surprisingly expensive cartridges.
from your report, it sounds like you also know more than myself about cartridges. not a tall climb because my personal knowledge is slight, I only buy and use one cartridge at a time.
and my personal industry knowledge is so old it was current back when A T carriages were all brighter than normal, following the Japanese custom of having products to reproduced the traditional Japanese musical instruments well, so as not to lose face among their conservative industry contemporaries. it didn't last forever , but I always thought the home market Japanese classical over western music sounds concept interesting.
your comment got me wondering about the context of your remark about ortofon quality , because of my buying decision.
Is your experience recent, over a number of ortofon carts , or what ever details you might provide to satisfy my curiosity , would be appreciated.. I can't answer for myself because I haven't mounted the cartridge yet, or even set up my stereo .
I figured since they were a major player in the industry , and had that big old iconic SPU cart that is so well regarded, that the merchandise was a pretty safe bet.
thanks, and if you managed to read through all that, I regret the lack of brevity.
The LVB got a good review in HFNRR. So it should! The price jump from a plain vanilla Black is considerable.
My experience with Ortofon is restricted to their MMs. Their MCs are far too expensive for my liking and the technical performance not up to AT standards plus the compliance is too low so my comments are restricted to OM and 2M cartridges.
My first exposure to Ortofon OM was with the Dual ULM165E that came with the Dual 505mk3 my father bought in 1987. The stylus was perfectly aligned (in terms of azimuth) and the cartridge output was flat and tracked all the test tracks up to 80um at 1.5g. This is not possible with any OM10 stylus I have bought since then starting around the early 2000s and the frequency response is definitely not the same as the ULM165E stylus I first encountered. This image gives an idea of how far off zenith is on these budget tips!
According to Ortofon the 2MRed styli are machine made whilst the Blue and up are hand made.
I bought a 2MBlue in 2014 and whilst the nude Ogura elliptical had a lovely polish and nicely aligned for zenith, the azimuth was several degrees off, failed to reach 70um at 2g and had a peculiar roll off in the brilliance band that was more aggressive than the Shure "x" curve. It still sounds quite nice after I equalize the response so I use it as a beater cartridge. A couple of years ago, the Blue stylus was quite heavily discounted so I bought about 6 of them so that I could cherry pick the best samples. Well, although I haven't used them yet, the azimuth is all over the place. I have some Red styli which were much more extended and flat in response as well as better tracking giving better than 70um at 1.8g so the Blue I got is likely not faulty out of the box.
I recently bought a 2MBronze (25% discount!) but have yet to mount it to compare. However, visually, the stylus is nicely aligned. So perhaps they take more care the higher up the range you go, but if you look on this forum to around the time the 2M was "new", I remember reading some inmates who were disappointed with the Black performance and quality - I recall someone talking about azimuth and cantilever skew.
HFNRR in their review of the LVB also referenced the poor tracking of the plain Black and they were pleased to find that the LVB tracked better. With all things audio, everyone is going to have a good and a bad experience (just like insurance companies!).
I used to be a Stanton fan and had lots of cartridges and styli from the golden age and then became disenchanted with them as quality dropped off a cliff towards the end days. Ortofon used to be really good at the budget end, but have "let themselves go" a bit I feel.
The issue I noted with my Blue certainly indicates that it is a bit hit and miss at that price point!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
I post this long replay , knowing it is not the usual internet brief style, as a kind of talk story, the kind a friend might share.
I am also very happy with a moving magnet cart, although any high output cart is probably a good match for my system. I also like a good moving iron design, because of the potential for lower mass. both types have played well in my system.
I don't play a lot of classical, so the punch of a moving magnet works well on rock and the other uncomplicated grooves I play. plus accurate amplification is a lot less demanding with a high output signal. additionally , I have finally gotten it through my head that although a cart is the voice of the system, without a suitable arm , it's like a race car with cheap tires.
I went with the Beethoven 2m black because of advanced features ,a reputable manufacturer , the nano tube suspension, the boron cantilever, the tip shape, among other things.
I also liked the characteristic MM ability to replace the tip, because I have grown old and the possibility of this cart being my last alignment task , and to just snap in new tips without another alignment, is very appealing to me.
I also waited for a slight and very rare Black Friday price reduction, which was also very motivating.
otherwise I probably would have gone with a cart that allowed for wet cleaning. it also helped that the ortofon site had an arm matching feature that suggested the 2m as a match for my Michell technoarm , although the acceptance of that fact was tough on my ego. I was thinking of going to the rega carts , because the three point mount avoided cartridge alignment issues , but the line is very expensive. I also liked that they used a suspension incorporating a machine that I always forget the name of.
I thought the Beethoven black was the closest I could get to replacing a very nice old shure cart that got destroyed . I started out with a Stanton EEE , attached to a kenwood 550 direct drive, as a package deal. . kenwood was the second line of turntables sold at a local place that made and sold the sumo high powered amps. big amps being a novel idea at the time. I always said kenwood made a heck of a can opener, although the turntable served me well. I ditched it after the shure cart I was using picked up contaminating noise as it passed over the direct drive coils, even though not heard at any usable levels. I am now firmly in the belt drive suspended turntable design camp, and count myself very fortunate to have a nice one. .
I had occasion, back when I was a sailor, to get into New York City once in a while , where I could get a succession of the top shure cartridges as they came out , for a modest price, from the crazy uncle store, " you have a crazy uncle in the stereo business" was the slogan, something like that.
it was a lucky break for me that shure used mass marketing, instead of the "audio salons" of the day, which had a significantly different business model , and prices. one time I came to the store, they had the shure v15 carts stacked up high in the window, with at least a couple of cases more, maybe 500 plus, stacked on the floor by the counter . I remember getting a top of the line shure cart for around a hundred bucks . the New York electronics district was very competitive at the time.
As is does, time passed , and I had grown somewhat disenchanted with ordering replacement styli from Japan, although it worked out ok . I lost enthusiasm when I ordered two tips , with the idea of using one to compare against the other, to check for wear on the tip being used. but when I got them and checked them for performance , one sounded clearly better than the other. Leading to my lasting concern about quality control. of course the beryllium foil cantilever was now aluminum, but the brush construction was a good distance from OEM. even though I no longer used the brush, the difference in quality was cause for concern.
So an OEM tip situation looked good to me, provided quality control was high. thus my question about your experience with ortofon carts, which I have never used.
with the new cart, I return back to my primary system building strategy, of replacing only the weak link , which always takes ma a good long while . next up is amplification , a complicated and costly decision , as my speakers are supposed to run with at least 200 watts. I might stick with what I have , mid fi amplification works well.
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