Ortofon Forms A New Musical Quintet
My wife used to buy me original Ortofon SPUGT’s for my Birthdays. She knew enough to prise off the body covers before buying to check if the suspension used white, red or black rubber. Each sounded different.
That was a long time ago and although I still prefer those vintage SPUG’s to just about any cartridge, times and technology has moved on (that’s a sigh you hear in the background).
These days Ortofon is building cartridges such as its new Quintet Moving Coil range, which takes over from the Vivo and Rondo ranges. In a nod to style the new cartridges can be had in a choice of Red, Blue, Bronze and Black.
For 78 lovers there’s even a mono version. And just like the rubber in the SPUG’s of yore each colour provides a different sound. Where the SPUG had a black plastic body, the newbies sport what’s called a special ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) thermoplastic material for each body.
The material is light-weight (the SPOG was a boat anchor) but rugged. Inside the natty cartridge bodies neodymium magnets use for the best output level. The Quintets are low internal impedance devices and so are load tolerant.
The new range is said to match a huge range of step up devices while their 12.7mm (half-inch) mounting geometry makes them easy to install in a tonearm.
Azimuth alignment is particularly easy thanks to the Quintets having plenty of stylus clearance and straight bodies with right angles front and rear. The Quintet’s weigh 89 grams and track at 2.3 grams.
"The Quintet range starts at $390 for the Red and the range offers terrific value for money and top quality sound." said Tom Manning, of Speakerbits, which distributes Ortofon in Australia.
For further information, please contact Speakerbits.
Posted in: Hi-Fi
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