Classic Ortofon Cartridges: The MC2000 MK II or the MC3000 MK II?


So I have owned quite a few Otofon cartridges over the years, everything from the modest OM cartridges to a couple of Cadenza up to an A90. I typically enjoy Ortofon cartridges.

Now one I have never owned is the MC2000. It seems from a bit of reading I have done that owners of the MC2000 felt it was the most accurate of the Ortofon cartridges, and that releases after it were not its equal.

However, when you look at the MC3000 it has a higher output level that would allow it to work with my Esoteric phono stage. The Esoteric is happy running an MC200 on it which has .09 mV output. but the MC2000 is .05 mV. The MC 3000 MK II is .13 mV from what I find.

Has anyone spent time listening to these classic MC 000 series of Ortofon cartridges? I know there is also a 5000 and 7500, but those seem to be pretty rare.

Regarding the MC2000, I wonder if I use a low mass headshell if I can use it on the Dynavector DV505. I don’t think the mass of the arm in the horizontal plane should affect it, and the vestigial arm can be configured to be an appropriate match for the compliance on this cartridge.

I currently have an MC200u on the arm and its very surprising regarding how good it sounds. Its actually pretty neutral, pretty expressive, but just a bit relaxed in the top end. I certainly enjoy it, but I wonder how these statement cartridges from the classic Ortofon line will sound. These would have been from their long time designer who has now retired, so its a different era of Ortofon versus what their current offerings are. Even though we should acknowledge that the current cartridges use design principals that were developed from this earlier time period and engineering team. 

Thoughts?
neonknight

Showing 4 responses by nandric

I have one MC 2000 for sell. As on ckaster's picture with the box
and headshell. 
chakster, you are probably  confused with my Sony XL 44 l. This
one got boron cantilever + nude Shibata from Axel. Lew got MC
2000 without box and headshell and the one I still own is complete
with box and (titanium?) headshell. 

My first enigma was the so called ''Greek lier paradox'', The Greek who stated that ''all Greek are liers''. The other was how Greek
succeeded to convince ''Slavic immigants'' on the Balkan to believe in ONLY ONE GOD while they were polytheisic originaly? There are many theories about this ''issue''. However nobody try ''economic kind''. Consider the case with 12 Gods  but with only 10 goats. Back than the ''integrity issue'' deed not exist. So trying to ''corrupt'' Gods was not an issue. But well with the problem how to please 12 of them with only 10 goats? Probaly because man are regarded as more valuable ''working force'' the daughters were ''logicaly'' considered to be less ,uh, valuable. So ''ONLY  two of those'' were needed to please all 12 Gods. Well the Greek deed not need more arguments then  that ONE GOD is much cheaper. 

The ''body'' versus the ''naked'' preference enigma. There is no
logic by preferences becuse those are ''subjective'' by ''nature''.
But even so contradictory satements should cause at least
some uneasy feeling. Why should cart desigener like Car,
Dertonarm, Ortofon , etc., etc. make so mach efforts with
even ''exotic materials'' to build ''resonance free'' bodies while
naked are not only much more easy to produce but also
much cheaper?  Doing whatever without any reason can
only (?) be explained by ''passion''. For example Rauls
passion to imrove things like many speaker owners who try
to improvw their speaker by more expensive wire. Removing
Faraday cage from Allaerts MC 2 or any other version
imply to know better than the designer himslef. But that is
how ambitious amateurs  think.