Ortofon SPU Cartridges

Oh and if using a SUT pay attention to the cartridge impedance, not all SPUs are the same. The Royal want’s no more than a 1:20 but only has 0.2mV, that would be a bit quiet into my MM phonostage which has only 35dB of gain so I use an active MC stage with 64dB and no SUT, some of the other SPUs will take a 1:30 SUT quite happily.

For those of you who use SPUs, what tonearm(s) have you found that work? Please share all the tonearms you've used that can accept a heavy cartridge like the SPUs.

I've recently read in my owners manual for my Jelco 750L that, even with the optional heavy weight, the maximum weight it can handle is 22g. So, 8 - 10 grams below what an SPU weighs.

groovemaster2 tonearm

Stax UA70 & UA90 vintage 12" tonearms

Victor (Japan) UA7082 10-1/2" tonearm

Ortofon TA110 9" tonearm

These all have supplemental counterweights to handle the SPU. The Stax and Victor arms are 1970-1975 vintage and can still be found fairly routinely on eBay from Japan. Additionally, the Thomas Schick 12" is currently produced, has outstanding bearings, and is an ideal match to the SPU line. I use all of these. One more I don’t have but is equally excellent is the Ortofon TA-210, the broadcast-length version of the TA-110.

Phil