Years ago, I had a Kontrapunkt C, and enjoyed it. I moved on through other cartridges, and once I had several tonearms to play with, I tried it again, and it was good, but the stylus was well-worn. So I replaced it with a Bronze (it's direct descendant) and found the magic gone. I ended up re-tipping the Kontrapunkt C.
Three or four years ago I sat through an Ortofon demo, examples from through the range up to and including Cadenza Black in the same system.
Very interesting, clear progression. Cadenza were a step up from Quintet though they were nice. Cadenza Bronze & Black clearly showed their reputation. Black was more resolving and airey, Bronze richer, a fuller flavour but without the sense of space the Black delivered.
At the time I was in the market for a cart at this level and ended up with Hana’s ML. For me it delivered the best of the Bronze & Black, tonal richness, weight and resolution. All that at a lower price. Ortofon’s were excellent in their own right, no reason someone else might feel in their system a Cadenza were just the ticket.
Sure, mesurements are not reviealing all qualities, they just weed out poor engineering/workmanship. I kind of like Ortofon 2MBlue, while the Windfeld TI left me surprisingly unimpressed.
Sure, mesurements are not reviealing all qualities, they just weed out poor engineering/workmanship. I kind of like Ortofon 2MBlue, while the Windfeld TI left me surprisingly unimpressed.
In general I agree that measurements have their place.
To be honest although I have been into vinyl for at least 55 years I hadn't purchased a Ortofon until just recently. It always seemed that there were other more interesting cartridges out there and yes early on I was enamoured with cartridges like the Shure V15 Mk iI because it measured better. The finicky ADC XLM showed me that tracking and specs weren't everything and the Decca London confirmed it so I realized that measurement wasn't everything!
As a back to the future experiment I decided that I wanted to try an Ortofon Classic SPU on an appropriate turntable/ tonearm. I am sure glad I did because I have been very pleased with the natural and realistic sound it is capable of. Does it measure well against today's cartridges? I wouldn't think so although that would have nothing to do with poor engineering/workmanship it's just a different means to the same end of providing quality playback.
