Generally the best value lower cost cartridges are of a mm design.
Ortofon good for preserving vinyl.
Ortofon was established in 1918 by the two danish engineers axel petersen and arnold poulsen.
Now ortofon is a micro mechanical powerhouse which develops and manufactures hearing aid components and the world acclaimed phono cartridges for vinyl records.
Maybe you re fanatical about the condition of your vinyl or maybe you have a super rare or valuable disc and you don t want to endanger your investment.
Ortofon is the world s leading cartridge specialist and one stop supplier of phono cartridges.
For budget purposes mm cartridges offer far better value.
The ortofon om pro s appx.
80 features a wide spherical needle designed to minimize record wear making it good for scratching and back cueing without the worry of vinyl damage.
If you re going to build a mc cartridge then you have to do it properly which means spending good money on it producing a more expensive product.
Firstly you may want to preserve a particular disc and retain the sound quality of that disc.
Ortofon also makes numerous moving coil mc cartridges which are better at preserving accuracy and sound quality but also more expensive.
No one appears to have done a double blind listener test comparing vinyl to cds but there is a good study from florida state s john.
It allows hearing all the sound features of various instruments guitar saxophone drums piano and others getting a chance to become the best phono cartridge under 500 for vinyl records lovers.
That said the company s entry level 2m series cartridges are still very good which is why some of the biggest turntable manufactures have chosen to use them.
There are cheap mc designs out there but they generally sound poor.
It requires between three and five grams of weight for optimal tracking.
The ortofon 2m bronze produces clear sound without even a slight buzz at any frequencies.