Ortofon SPU Century, time to celebrate the heritage?

@chakster, Thanks for joining the SPU Anniversary party!
The Classic GME mk2 (with elliptical tip) didn't convince me either, although I wouldn't exactly call it awful (in my opinion that qualification would better suit the Denon DL-103 series). When used in the right system (i.e. not too high end) the Classic can sound beguiling and musical, but the limitations are still obvious.

The 90th Anniversary on the contrary is one of the most 'complete' cartridges I ever heard. Nothing sticks out or calls to its attention, but still everything is there. It has that magical balancing act of clarity and warmth at the same time (not unlikely the FR-7 series). No special tip profile like the Royal, just a regular elliptical tip (similar to the Classic GME mk2). Amazing cartridge!

So the Royal would clearly be an interesting one. How about the Gold Reference, which also had the Replicant 100 tip? Or should the Royal be regarded as the succesor of the Gold Reference?

@chakster, smart marketing for sure. The trophy hunters just love 'limited editions'. And in my opinion ANY cartridge over $2k is a rip off, not just SPU's. I must admit I'm guilty of paying a bit more than that on a few occasions, but I draw the line at $2.5k.

After all, how much 'stuff' is in there to justify current pricing tactics? And how much R&D time can still be 'invested' to a technology that is basically unchanged in over 50 years?

The obscene pricing for MC's - like all things in high end audio - in recent years is disgraceful and it is unfortunate that even Ortofon has now joined this trend. So perhaps we should concentrate on past achievements instead and figure out which of these stand out from the crowd.

@ferrari275, I may have been a bit harsh there and it certainly wasn’t my intention to question anyone’s buying decisions. That is not my concern and none of my business.

My ’call to arms’ is motivated by a genuine concern that the high end audio ’industry’ is far too busy making expensive ’trophies’ for the 1%. That’s not celebrating music, but ’celebrating’ conspicuous consumption.

Just look at the many $100k+ speakers, amplifiers and turntables at the recent Munich event. With such components there is still ’some’ justification to the spiralling prices, as these may require serious R&D, high tech engineering and significant amounts of ’stuff’ in small production runs.

But seriously, phono cartridges? The technology is basically unaltered in 50 years, there isn’t much ’stuff’ to begin with and the time to build a cartridge by an experienced technician is just a matter of hours, not days.

One example to ’prove’ my point. Transfiguration recently released a Proteus with diamond cantilever at $10k. The regular Proteus with boron cantilever at $4000 is a really nice system. The new one possibly sounds even better, but charging $6000 extra for adding a piece of industrial grade diamond to an otherwise identical cartridge is just ludicrous.

There is no longer any intrinsic connection between performance and price with these ’objects of desire’. The logic appears to be ’the more expensive, the more desirable’. Maybe folks buying these things take after their female companions, thinking ’diamonds are a man’s best friend’. John Cale would disagree.....