Ortofon at Cloney Audio
Ortofon can trace its history back to the 1920’s two Danish Engineers - Axel Petersen (1887-1971) and Arnold Poulsen (1889-1952) -set out to develop a system for synchronising film soundtracks with moving pictures.
They succeeded by the mid twenties, paving the way for the “talkies” and their system became a mainstay of film sound worldwide.
Amidst the turmoil of World War II, the company began to focus on music reproduction, secretly developing a new record cutter head. The design was absolutely revolutionary, almost tripling the bandwidth which could be accommodated on disc - up from 5kHz to 14kHz. For reference, the nominal upper range of human hearing is 20 kHz, but in practice most adults hear little if anything beyond 15kHz.
From designing the equipment to commit music to disc, it was a logical next step to reverse the process by developing a pickup cartridge. This was absolutely necessary since no pickup system available at the time could reproduce what the cutter head was inscribing on disc.
Cartridges are essentially electricity generators and like all such generators they require the intersection of coils of wire and a magnetic field. In achieving this, cartridge designs fall into two basic categories - either a magnet attached to the stylus/cantilever moves within coils of wire (moving magnet) or the coils of wire are attached to the cantilever and move in a magnetic field (moving coil).
The latter design requires a higher degree of miniaturisation and is generally regarded as superior when price is not the primary consideration. This brings us back to Ortofon and the fact that Holger Christian Arentzen developed the first moving coil cartridge in 1947, leading to the foundation of Ortofon as we know it today. The mono type A was soon followed by the legendary SPU (stereo pick-up), a cartridge which is still regarded by some enthusiasts as the finest ever made.
From there, Ortofon followed a path of innovation across both moving magnet and moving coil technologies with a range that spans all price categories from the affordable to cost no object using exotic laser melted titanium bodies and diamond cantilevers. The company’s dominance in the cartridge has allowed it to invest heavily in manufacturing technology with amazing precision micro machines, as shown in the video to the left.
Ortofon - from the greek - Correct (orto) Sound (fon) - perfectly sums up this enduring brand.
For more info on Ortofon, visit their website ortofon.com or visit us for a demo!
2M Series
One of our most popular cartridge ranges, the 2M range of moving magnet cartridges with a replaceable stylus and excellent tracking. The Red, Blue and Bronze and Black will enhance any turntable. When it comes to stylus replacement time you can upgrade your cartridge by moving up the range e.g. from Red to Blue. With a robust output the 2m series will work well with the moving magnet phono stages found in many integrated amplifiers.
Quintet Series
As Ortofon say: The Quintet Red is a perfect introduction to the world of Ortofon moving coils.It features an Elliptical diamond which is cut and polished to Ortofon’s standard. This entry-level MC cartridge has very high price-to-performance ratio and is a perfect all-rounder for the newcomers to the world of Moving Coil cartridges. MC Quintet Red is an all-purpose cartridge that delivers open, dynamic sound with a slight touch of warmth.
Cadenza Series
Again, available in a range of colour coded versions, the Cadenza series are top quality moving coil cartridges featuring aluminium cantilevers. Moving up the range brings improvements to the coil wiring (from silver to gold wires) and in the stylus profile - with Ortofon’s famous “Replicant” profile in the series topper Bronze. Both the Quintet and Cadenza series outpt levels of .4 .5 mV are a good match for most amplifier’s Moving Coil Phono Stage.
The SPU
The original of the species - a legendary cartridge. Note that the most SPUs are integrated cartridge/headshell assemblies compatible with arms which have a removable bayonet fitting headshell.
Exclusive Series
For the true audiophile, the Windfeld and Anna cartridges feature bodies made from selective laser melted (SLM) titanium, a material which is light, extremely rigid and with good damping. With a rigid boron cantilever in the Windfeld and diamond in the anna, these are the very best cartridges that Ortofon can make and among the very best in the world. Note that these cartridges’ 0.2V output requires a quality phono preamp. We are happy to advise.
