As someone with all of Beethoven’s symphonies and piano concertos on my shelf, I took the news of an Ortofon pickup bearing the composer’s name with a shrug. According to the press release that came out in 2020, they had taken a perfectly good 2M Black and added an exclusive pin. Big deal. Besides, it …
The music flows out of the speakers and the warm, pleasant sound spreads like a dawning summer day around the body. At the same time, a small stone, smaller than a pinhead, is dragged along deep grooves in a rotating vinyl record. The contact surface is so marginal that a small vibration can endanger the …
The silver-gray cartridge from Audio-Technica is in a price range where Moving Magnet cartridges are more common. Since this is a Moving Coil cartridge, it has two disadvantages compared to an MM cartridge. The entire cartridge must be replaced when the pin is worn out. The pin cannot be replaced. And it delivers low 0.35 …
Most people who have one, or have owned a turntable, have heard of Ortofon. The 100-year-old company has been making cartridges longer than most. The angled Concorde cartridge, which has stood on thousands of DJ players, is among the best known. This one, The Ortofon MC Quintet Red, is made for discerning ears, and is …
Sumiko is not Japanese, but American and is both an American distributor and the company behind Sumiko Cartridges. Their Black Pearl and Blue Point Special are among the very best pickups in a reasonable price range. This is also one of the nicer ends of the price scale, and the Moving Magnet cartridge Olympia is …
The Japanese construction is older than the undersigned. The Denon cartridge was launched in 1962, and has since come in a wide range of variants. The cartridge is a Moving Coil, and has gained an ever so small legend status, since it was conceived for broadcasting use over 50 years ago. Denon DL-103 is easy …
Headphones, most would say if we mention Grado. But watchmaker Joseph Grado of Brooklyn, NY, actually started with handmade cartridges. Which he made at home and resold. In 1959, Grado had been making pickups for six years, when the first Moving Coil version in stereo was patented. The rest is history as they say, and …