Ortofon SPU Century, time to celebrate the heritage?

@chakster, smart marketing for sure. The trophy hunters just love 'limited editions'. And in my opinion ANY cartridge over $2k is a rip off, not just SPU's. I must admit I'm guilty of paying a bit more than that on a few occasions, but I draw the line at $2.5k.

After all, how much 'stuff' is in there to justify current pricing tactics? And how much R&D time can still be 'invested' to a technology that is basically unchanged in over 50 years?

The obscene pricing for MC's - like all things in high end audio - in recent years is disgraceful and it is unfortunate that even Ortofon has now joined this trend. So perhaps we should concentrate on past achievements instead and figure out which of these stand out from the crowd.

A fool and his money are soon parted. 

A bargain compared to the $16K Grado!

The trophy hunters just love 'limited editions'. And in my opinion ANY cartridge over $2k is a rip off, not just SPU's. I must admit I'm guilty of paying a bit more than that on a few occasions, but I draw the line at $2.5k.

In my opinion, I cannot disagree more.  Declaring "ANY" phono cartridge over $2k is a rip off is rather like saying any digital playback source, amp, preamp, cables, turntable, loudspeaker over $(insert arbitrary number)k is a rip off.  So many factors come into play when assembling a system for real musical synergy, nothing is that black and white.    

When the Ortofon MC Century arrives, even if it does not meet my already high expectations, or if for any reason it's playback characteristic "flavor" is quite not to my liking within my personal system and room, then the piece will be sold, plain and simple.  And this of course would not automatically mean the cartridge is "bad" or a "rip off", in fact I will remain grateful to have had the rare fortune and opportunity to own such a world class phono cartridge from a company dedicated to analog who's legacy spans some 100 years.  This is a hobby to celebrate music, albeit an expensive one but so enjoyable nevertheless. 

@ferrari275, I may have been a bit harsh there and it certainly wasn’t my intention to question anyone’s buying decisions. That is not my concern and none of my business.

My ’call to arms’ is motivated by a genuine concern that the high end audio ’industry’ is far too busy making expensive ’trophies’ for the 1%. That’s not celebrating music, but ’celebrating’ conspicuous consumption.

Just look at the many $100k+ speakers, amplifiers and turntables at the recent Munich event. With such components there is still ’some’ justification to the spiralling prices, as these may require serious R&D, high tech engineering and significant amounts of ’stuff’ in small production runs.

But seriously, phono cartridges? The technology is basically unaltered in 50 years, there isn’t much ’stuff’ to begin with and the time to build a cartridge by an experienced technician is just a matter of hours, not days.

One example to ’prove’ my point. Transfiguration recently released a Proteus with diamond cantilever at $10k. The regular Proteus with boron cantilever at $4000 is a really nice system. The new one possibly sounds even better, but charging $6000 extra for adding a piece of industrial grade diamond to an otherwise identical cartridge is just ludicrous.

There is no longer any intrinsic connection between performance and price with these ’objects of desire’. The logic appears to be ’the more expensive, the more desirable’. Maybe folks buying these things take after their female companions, thinking ’diamonds are a man’s best friend’. John Cale would disagree.....