Ortofon Bronze MM Cartridge $429

Ortofon

First of all, Ortofon is a REAL MANUFACTURER, based in Denmark. Yup, Ortofon builds its own cartridges in its own house with Danish TENDER LOVING CARE.

I’m not saying what comes out of Asia is no good. I AM saying NOBODY has Ortofon’s dedication to detail throughout its product line.

Make no mistake, cartridge manufacturing is tedious, precision work. Ortofon is the most reliable REAL MANUFACTURER of carts out there! You MIGHT know that there are many “designer names” out there, where the cart is ACTUALLY BUILT by a generic vendor. Pay them enough money and they’ll slap whatever name you want on your OEM’d cart.

Ortofon makes precision cartridges with consistency. THIS, is a major deal. Nobody makes as wide a line as Ortofon, from $100 to above $10k, with the solid reliability of Ortofon.

We certainly think it’s cool that there are artisans in the far east that will hand make phono cartridges. But guess what? Their consistency isn’t solid. The fellas doing this work are getting OLD.
No two of them are the SAME! What you get might be grade A. But you are very likely not get the geezer’s best work!

Bronze 2M

The Bronze 2M is an MM cart with 5.0 mV output. Many moving magnets provide half that output, which will reveal the noise of a less than stellar phono preamp. With 5.0 output- it’s plenty for any MM phono section to work with- without adding superfluous noise.

The Bronze 2M has Ortofon’s cut above Split Pole cartridge “engine.” It’s a notch above even Ortofon’s famous Red & Blue carts. It provides better separation and definition.

The Bronze 2M has Ortofon’s Fine Line nude stylus. The stylus is a laser fit nude diamond through the cantilever. It isn’t a tiny chunk of diamond glued to the cantilever’s mounting block. The advantage of the Fine Line shape is that it goes deep into the groove for accurate tracing, but it doesn’t scrape the side walls as much as a Shibata shape.

Now, the Shibata shape is fine for records that are NEW, 180-200g and in mint shape. If you are running records that are ANYTHING BUT, and most of you ARE, I prefer the Bronze’s Fine Line.
Heaven forbid you enjoy buying USED records! They are notoriously noisy as people have ice skated across them over the years. Stick with the Fine Line to avoid smashing off the side walls like a bob sled.