Whats your take on the Ortofon SPUs?

I use a Royal GM II on an SME M2-12R and had a Mono GM until I busted the cantilever. I'm a big fan of the Royal--it sounds rich like traditional SPUs and also, because it employs the Replicant 100 styus like the A90, detailed like modern MC carts.

Alignment is an issue, though, and inconsistent between SPUs, in my experience. The SME arm, fortunately, has a slide mount for altering P2S distance, which I find to be crucial. I have a Mint LP for the M2-12R; I'm able to adjust the arm so the stylus stays on arc. When switching to the Mono GM, though, I do to redo, which was a bit irksome. You'd think they'd be consistent.

I'm not sure I'd use SPUs if I couldn't make the adjustments afforded by the SME arm. But with that ability, I really enjoy them, and I'm planning to buy the new 95th Anniversary edition when it becomes available.

I should qualify my statement about getting the SPU stylus to stay on arc on the MintLP. (Too bad there's no edit feature....) I can get it to nail the null points pretty much exactly in the center of the (rather wide) Mint line, and it remains within the line for the entire arc, but it strays toward the edges at some points, which is inevitable without being able to rotate the SPU as one would a regular cartridge. Still, good alignment is achievable with the slide mount. Hope this helps.

Ohnofiasco,

A dedicated arm for SPUs is the way to go, IMO.

I like MintLPs. I have a few of them for various arms. In general, I prefer Wallytractors because the inscribed lines on the mirrored surface seem a bit more precise, and the mirroring is better, for reduced parallax, but you can't really get them anymore.

Ken Willis' Accutraks are also good. What I like about them is the lines are on the surface whereas the Mint's are beneath a layer of glass. But the Accutrak lines are even fatter than the Mint, which isn't much of an issue if you take the time to make sure the stylus comes down in the center, and they're not mirrored.