Ortofon MC A90 cartridge

Mike,

I used to own a jubilee and while it did little wrong, more importantly it did little right for me in my system.

It is now being thoroughly enjoyed by an audio buddy with my old VPI HRX that I sold him.

It will be interesting how you feel it performs in your system.

BTW, the A90 sounds equally as good (maybe better) on my Exclusive P3 as it does on the raven AC3.

Funny, I also have another A90 reserved from the next shipment in early Feb, so I have some more time to play with my tables and see if my delight dimms any in that time.

cheers

Lew / Axel

I guess you are telling me I should take my Ortofon M20FL Super out of its Thakker box and have a listen to it. It is looking ignored and neglected at the moment.

I will do that over the Xmas period and report back.

JFrench

comparisons - hmmm - always difficult. My dyna XV-1 has been my reference for quite a while now.

In my system the A90 seems to have an uncanny ability to easily differentiate musical and recorded differences more from album to album. This is also the case even from track to track differences more than any other cartridge I have heard.
It always does this with control,poise and an eveness without any frequency spotlighting or other obvious downsides. The A90 is sounding more like my system and its voicing than a cartridge - which is what I luv.

That the A90 can sound absolutely wonderful on a current Raven AC3/Phantom combo, but equally well on a 30 year old Exlusive P3 DD table says something.

The dyna in comparison has a signature sound that you hear from album to album. Listening to the dyna in isolation you would not really think that.

I really think Ortofon are onto something special with their unique SLM manufacturing process to make the cartridge body.

Mike is buying another A90 and I am almost at the same decision point, so I guess you know how we feel :-)

Mike, I did not wish to play that game of value for money. I actually think that the M20FL Super is delightful in its own rite/right/wright (never knew which form was correct for this phrase). Just consider it as another cartridge, if you get a chance to listen to one. In fact, since I have two, one of which is still in its box, I would be willing to lend you one of mine. My first one sounded excellent right out of the box but got much better after 2-4 hours and a couple of tours of the Cardas test LP.

I know nothing about the Jubilee; that's another kettle of fish. I suspect that the MC7500 is superior to the Jubilee, but I have no data to support that idea.

Having used the Jubilee for couple of years before acquiring the A90, I can say emphatically that the latter is on a completely different performance plane.

The Jubilee does share some of the same ease (tracking prowess?) and throws a pretty big stable soundstage while balancing neutrality and robustness well.

But the Jubilee does not have anything like the open window clarity of the A90. The A90 throws a wider deeper stage and has far more life and transient quickness. The top end of the A90 kills the Jubilee.

As others have said, the A90 is a real chameleon, it's sound can change dramatically from record to record and track to track (the Jubilee does this to a lesser extent). The field of depth is greatly expanded - records recorded distantly from the mics sound further back, upfront recordings further forward. But it's the clarity/transparency I can't get over. It's the first really expensive cartridge i've owned, so maybe this is par for the course, but it's made my (relatively modest) system sound much more transparent than I thought it could.

If you want hear back into the recording and be put in touch with the musicians, this is a great cartridge.