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Ortofon A90 review.... wrong choice of gear

Hi all

Just had a QUICK read of the new Feb issue of HiFi World which was sent to me by a good friend. Why I ask myself?
I was interested in what they thought about the new Ortofon A90 MC. I own one like many other folk. It's a great cartridge and without being totally biased probably the best I have heard but then it is expensive. I also own a PW Windfeld which is the next model down and fortunately the reviewer compared the 2 cartridges... should make for a great and riveting read.

I read through the review and saw that he did not feel the differences between the 2 cartridges we large. I was really surprised because in my system the differences are MASSIVE! I continued to read on..... then he says that if you are using an Icon Audio phonostage it's not bad but it sounds better with a Graham Slee.

Question.

Who on earth would spend $4000 on a cartridge and use a basic $900 phono stage? Most of the folks I know that own cartridges above $2000 use phono stages that can get the most of their cartridge. It's no wonder the reviewer could not tell the difference between the 2 cartridges. If he had used a better phono stage and system he would have had half a chance of actually hearing the qualities of the cartridges. A hifi dealer would have told the guy... ' I wouldn't recommend you use a $4000 with such mediocre gear'....

Anyways, that is the state of play in this magazine, I can't imagine the manufacturer and distributor were that happy about it.
robm1

Showing 3 responses by chakster

chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Could you explain what makes a $4000 phono stage so special ?
You can mate an expensive cartridge to a $400-800 SUT from the 80s and a nice modern MM phono stage, this combination is not over $2000 if you want something very nice, so why a $4000 phono stage? Have you ever seen what is inside the phono stage and how much cost the components used ? 

Would you say the same about a phono cable, do you need a $2000 phono cable then ? And what about a tuntable, $20 000 required ? 
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Each phono stage is different, some of them will give you many options, some will give you nothing. There are MM and MC phono stages, but also only MC phono stages and only MM phono stages available.

It’s hard to understand what are you talking about because the price for a single MM phono stage will be different from the price for an MM/MC phono stage. If the last one is more expensive does it make it better?

Some decent SUT can be found for under $500 from Denon, Luxman and tons of great japanese manufacturers from the past. Some of the world best transformers ALWAYS comes from Japan. Remember transformers for tube amps?

A SUT and relatively cheap single MM phono stage will cost less than a MM/MC phono stage with high gain and optional loading, balanced inouts/outputs etc ...

Not to mention some unique design like CURRENT INJECTION phono stages.

When people referring to a price it’s very unprofessional.
A phono stage design is more important.

There always will be a phono stage that is more expensive that you have, all your life!

And same about cartridges, especially from Ortofon, each year there is a model that more expensive than previous model... and to infinity, a $15k cartridges etc. 
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Among the Ortofon line i can recall one cartridge with very special top end i had in my system, the cartridge is Ortofon MC-2000, some friends noticed that too when we were listening tunes. The original stylus tip on MC2000 is SCL (a Symmetrical Contact Line), there is a hole paragraph about this diamond in the booklet for MC2000.   
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