Ortofon MC A90 cartridge

Mike, thanks for sharing your insights. I think Steve used a term like "jump factor" or something like that to describe the Reed as well. Looking forward to hearing about your further comparisons. I've been bowled over by the garrard/tri/a90 combo. If the Reed further improves on this, it will be something. Thanks again and enjoy the holidays.

Just a note regarding phono loading of the A90.

I initially had this set at 100 ohms but have now lowered to 47ohms. The difference can be startling - Al Di Meola's 'Alien chase on Arabian Desert' sounds awesomely huge and full of impact and atmospherics at 47ohms. Put the loading back to 100ohms and the sound becomes slightly bigger, but somewhat looser, less defined atmosphere and positioning/shape of instruments, less impact and excitement.

100 ohms can 'goose up' some recordings that lack air and atmosphere but mostly sounds less correct to me. YMMV.

Interestingly, Paul Seydor of TAS loads his Ortofon Windfeld (which uses essentially the same motor as the A90) at 40ohms.

System Details

Tobes, great pic of your A90! What camera/lenses did you use?

Jfrech,

The camera was just a Panasonic TZ7 (ZS3 in the US) point and shoot. I have no clues about photography...I take a bunch of shots and pick ones that look ok.

The pic on my webpage is a pretty low res reduction. The unreduced crop I posted in the pictures thread elsewhere shows more detail (but less context): Ortofon A90

This is essentially the classic ten times the internal impedance and it results in the flattest frequency response and thus the most neutral presentation. I also find no diminution of transient response or transparency. I agree that the raising the impedance to a hundred ohms--let alone running it unloaded--can produce some attractive artifacts, but artifacts they remain and most emphatically not accurate. They also become fatiguing after awhile.