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Ortofon A90 review.... wrong choice of gear

Hi all

Just had a QUICK read of the new Feb issue of HiFi World which was sent to me by a good friend. Why I ask myself?
I was interested in what they thought about the new Ortofon A90 MC. I own one like many other folk. It's a great cartridge and without being totally biased probably the best I have heard but then it is expensive. I also own a PW Windfeld which is the next model down and fortunately the reviewer compared the 2 cartridges... should make for a great and riveting read.

I read through the review and saw that he did not feel the differences between the 2 cartridges we large. I was really surprised because in my system the differences are MASSIVE! I continued to read on..... then he says that if you are using an Icon Audio phonostage it's not bad but it sounds better with a Graham Slee.

Question.

Who on earth would spend $4000 on a cartridge and use a basic $900 phono stage? Most of the folks I know that own cartridges above $2000 use phono stages that can get the most of their cartridge. It's no wonder the reviewer could not tell the difference between the 2 cartridges. If he had used a better phono stage and system he would have had half a chance of actually hearing the qualities of the cartridges. A hifi dealer would have told the guy... ' I wouldn't recommend you use a $4000 with such mediocre gear'....

Anyways, that is the state of play in this magazine, I can't imagine the manufacturer and distributor were that happy about it.
robm1
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myles_b_astor's avatar
myles_b_astor
134 posts
 
What Rob is saying in my book is that the Ortofon A90 is the companies statement product, an all out assault on the SOTA in cartridge design and manufacturing. So he's right that it makes no sense to review it with anything but the best phono stages (for instance ARC, cj, Zanden, BAT, Ayre, Lyra, TW Acoustics, etc.) and to really hear everything this cartridge is capable of doing.

Otherwise, you're just going to hear everything thru the lowest common denominator and are you hearing the cartridge or the phono section? Would you put a SOTA cartridge in an inexpensive tonearm with lots of colorations and then try to ascribe a character to the cartridge? Not likely either.
lewm
13,108 posts
 
Fact is, most reviews are worthless except to tell you the features of the product under test. You mention the phono stage, but I also have to wonder about the tonearm and turntable that were used, not to mention the linestage, amps, spkrs, wires, etc. I agree strongly that price is not proportional to quality, but in this case we have some other information to go on re the products in question. What you might take from this particular review is that this reviewer using this particular system cannot hear significant differences between two very expensive cartridges made by the same company. This is not at all surprising.
myles_b_astor's avatar
myles_b_astor
134 posts
 
Yes and no. I agree with what you're saying because arm/bearing resonances can kill a cartridge's dynamics, etc. OTOH, designing a RIAA curve is no easy task either and low noise/high gain phono sections good enough to use with a low output A90 don't grow on trees either.
gregm
3,405 posts
 
If he had used a better phono stage and system
I would add: "And had loaded the cartridges correctly".
I happen to agree about the phono, BTW. Not disputing the many qualities of the stage used -- but so many phonos seem to hover between mediocrity and boredom...
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