Ortofon MC A90 Cartridge VTF

Dear Jtinn: You start the thread where you share with us that you are waiting the Ortofon answer.

By M. Lavigne last post we assume you already have the answer and I have to say that we all are waiting your post about.

Could you?, thank you in advance.

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Sure, I have been a bit busy and meant to post a little sooner.

The thought by the Chief Engineer at Ortofon was that it could probably be explained by stylus rake angle.

He did note that the VTF will vary slightly between arms, even when it’s the same cartridge, but he also remarked that the difference should not be one of extreme magnitude.

He agreed with the notion that SRA has a profound effect on the performance of the cartridge, as the Replicant diamond’s size and shape requires careful stylus rake adjustment to get the sharp edges perfectly within the groove. If the VTA is only set approximately (say within 5mm), then the VTF is going to seriously change the stylus rake angle.

He also said that you should shoot for 2.0g as a minimum, as anything less could compromise the tracking ability.

Ultimately Louis of Ortofon USA agreed “follow your ears”.

Personally I followed my ears and found the settings we used to be the best. Of course we took into account VTA and Steve Dobbins worked very diligently setting up each source.

Even at the 1.56 setting on the Garrard, the cartridge tracked great!

Dear Jtinn: Certainly the Ortofon people at Ortofon ( Denmark. ) has the same advise and they does not talk about " follow your ears ". Next is the answer direct from other Ortofon Chief:

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Hi Raul

There are some things that might go wrong when you are using such a low VTF.
I certainly won’t recommend that!

Most critical is that you will probably damage your records do to mistracking.
Remember that the Replicant 100 has a very narrow (“sharp”) edge!

Secondly (and third) you might have wrong VTA and SRA.
So the coils will be in non-ideal position and misaligned rake angle will cause distortion and record wear.

Ortofon cartridge are designed to have correct VTA and SRA when used with correct (i.e. recommended) VTF in a tonearm parallel to the record surface.
The range of VTF that is indicated in the data-sheet gives you the limits for adjustment.

Hope these comments helps you

Best regards

Leif Johannsen
Chief of acoustics and technology
Ortofon A/S

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I posted about " minute/tiny " mistracking even if we can't detect and about coild position, both subjects IMHO are critical for the cartridge performance.

Of course that we audiophiles normaly follows our ears and like Mike each one of us made/make what give us better musical pleasure.

Thank you Mike to share your A-90 experiences.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

after reading the responses to jtinn and Raul from Ortofon, and then listening over many hours to my A90 tracking very happily at 1.56 grams, one is tempted to conclude that maybe the Reed 2P arm has advantages over the Ortofon arms used to form the factory perspectives.

please note that i am only 'tempted' to conclude and have not actually concluded that.

i do not presume to understand cartridge construction to the degree to question the manufacturer's perspective, i'm only listening and observing. i can say there is no audible evidence that any miss-tracking is occuring. another way to put it would be that any cartridge would be 'proud' to sound like this while miss-tracking.

Dear Mike: As you know several times in audio is really difficult to meet/match exactly the " technical " factors with what we heard/hear.

Obviously that your cartridge/tonearm combination function in that precise way and to function/perform in that way it needs that lower VTF.
I want to think ( by my experiences. ) that other cartridge/tonearm combination can perform in a similar way but with different VTF.

The behavior in a tonearm/cartridge and its performance is something that we know works and have to works in matced couple but we really don't know yet all the why's and how's on that critical relationship.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.