ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hello, all!
This may be a bit of a biased place to ask this question, but I wanted to know how the older B&O carts compare to more modern offerings by companies such as Orotofon. I’ve been entranced by the style of Beogram gear, but the hold-back has been the cartridges.
At the moment, on my current turntable, I have an Ortofon 2M Red. If I grab the Beogram I am looking at, it appears I will need to grab an SMMC4 from Soundsmith for $200.
Does anyone have experience with these types of carts, or something similar? I’m not an extremely picky audiophile, as long as a cart sounds good then I’m in.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Thanks!
People have varied opinions on the theory of the MMC (moving micro-cross) cartridge design. It "sounded just fine" if you ask me. The mass/accuracy benefits of MMC didn't seem as audible as the switch from spherical to an elliptical cross-section diamond (which the SMMC4 has). Further refinements, like the "Shibata"-shaped (Nude Contact Line) diamond, and making the cantilever lighter and stiffer, do make a difference -- but less&less as you go along: You are still dragging a physical object across a stamped representation of analog modulation! $200 for a cartridge in 2021 doesn't sound particularly expensive, even though that's twice the price of the Ortofon 2M Red.
I'd like to provide some counterpoint. The MMC20CL and its current Soundsmith replacement, SMMC20CL are fine cartridges and are a reasonable value. However, the cartridge is definitely the limiting factor on this turntable. Back in the 80's I modified quite a number of 4002/4's to take the Grado Signature series which was also a moving iron design but offered the next level of sound to the extent that it was one of Harry Pearson's of TAS favorite vinyl systems. I also offered a version with the Super SDX-2000 which was a high output MC which I still have though re-tipped by Soundsmith. I am currently using a modern MC design from ClearAudio, the Concept MC, which has a moderately low output of .42mV. This did necessitate rewiring the table and modifying the muting function to lower the noise floor. The sound improvement both in speed, transparency and soundstaging was definitely worth it!
Here's a picture.
I just bought a Soundsmith MMC2 to replace my B&O MMC5. It sounds a LOT better!!
Bear in mind Soundsmith will retip a worn stylus, for a portion of the original cost. So when this eventually wears out I'll just get it retipped
I will keep the MMC5 for my beater records though; it sounded ok, so I'm sure the Soundsmith MMC4 will be better than it was, based on specs