Ortofon MC A90 cartridge

Mikel,

Just re-reading your comments on the SP10/Jubilee, specifically:

OTOH the Technics/Reed allow the Jubilee to likely have more overall energy and particularly more bass slam. the Reed really has a 'jump' factor....."

Are you saying the SP10/Reed/Jubilee beats the Garrard/Triplanar/A90 in energy and bass slam?
If so, the mind boggles at how much better the SP10/Reed/A90 will sound, since the A90 displays significantly better bass tautness/density/speed and is far more lively than the Jubilee (at least in my TNT/Phantom II setup).

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