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Ortofon MC Anna Moving-Coil Cartridge

Ortofon MC Anna Moving-Coil Cartridge

In audio the word “neutral” can cover a multitude of virtues—or a multitude of sins. It all depends on who’s doing the talking—and the listening.

Take the innovative, somewhat controversial, now- discontinued, $4500 Ortofon MC A90 moving-coil cartridge that I raved about in Issue 208. I’m on record saying that this supremely fast, supremely detailed transducer sounded unusually “neutral” in overall balance, by which I meant that it didn’t seem to have much color or texture of its own, making it exceptionally transparent to sources. Yes, the A90 was also a little soft in the top treble and a little lean in the low bass, midbass, and power range; nonetheless, if sources were well recorded it reproduced them that way, and if they weren’t…well, you heard what was wrong with them with the same clarity and fidelity that the A90 brought to records that were “right.”

However, long experience has shown me that one man’s (or this man’s) “neutral” and “transparent” is another man’s “cold” and “analytical.” Let’s face it: How you hear any audio component depends on what you’re looking for from that component and from an audio system in general. This is precisely why I’ve divided listeners into different groups. For instance, what I call an “as you like it” listener, for whom gorgeous tone color and sensational dynamics (particularly in the bass) come first and foremost, wouldn’t have heard the MC A90’s “neutrality” the way a transparency-to-sources listener like me did. For him the cartridge’s slight Nordic chilliness and leanish balance would have been sonically more significant than its overall lack of color, texture, and grain, its exceptional resolution, and its fidelity to sources.

However, I have good news for Ortophobes and Ortophiles alike in the form of the company’s new top-of-the-line cartridge— the MC Anna. Priced at what is (for Ortofon) an unprecedentedly high $8495, the Anna, named (for good reason, as you will see) after the great Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, is as different in its own fashion from the A90 and previous Ortofons as the Goldfinger Statement (its chief competitor, IMO) is from the Goldfinger Diamond v2 and previous Clearaudios.

If you’re coming directly from the MC A90, just looking at the Anna will be a bit of shock. After making a big deal out of the A90’s near-vestigial body, whose incredibly small size, light weight, and single-piece construction were said to contribute to its lower resonant signature (and higher transparency and resolution), Ortofon has turned abruptly on its heel and given the MC Anna a far more massive (sixteen grams as opposed to the A90’s scant eight), conventionally sized (though not conventionally shaped) cartridge body. In this case, however, appearances are somewhat misleading.

The Anna’s chassis is, indeed, much larger, heavier, and more bulbous than that of the A90, but it has been built in precisely the same way that the A90’s was, using the selective laser melting (SLM) process in which micro-particles of titanium are welded together by lasers working like computer-controlled knitting needles to construct—bit-by-bit, layer by layer—a single-piece enclosure. This technique, says Ortofon, “allows for precise control of the density of the body material [and] extremely high internal damping.” As was the case with the A90, the end result is lower susceptibility to resonances.

 

Of course, the fact that the Anna’s chassis has been built in the same way as the A90’s leaves unanswered the question of why Ortofon saw fit to re-inflate that chassis—and, to be honest, I’m not completely sure what the answer to that question is. Perhaps it has to do with lowering compliance to make for better (or more universal) tonearm-matching. (The Anna has a compliance of 9μm/mN; the A90 is 16μm/mN.) On the other hand (or in addition), it may have to do with one of the cartridge’s other “advancements” over the A90 (and previous Ortofons): its patent-pending magnet system.

Ortofon claims that this entirely new system, which “greatly optimizes geometry” and also increases the “active material” (a combination of neodymium and iron-cobalt) of the magnetic engine, “allows each coil to sense identical flux density regardless of position,” thereby optimizing dynamic linearity. It also allows the use of a lightweight, non-magnetic, polymer-based armature, reducing inductance and further increasing the accuracy with which cantilever movements are tracked and reproduced by the coils.

The dramatic increase in flux density has another significant benefit: a reduction in moving mass. Since the Anna’s magnetic field is much stronger and more evenly distributed, the coils can be constructed with far fewer windings and zero overlap among those windings. Ortofon claims that the new magnet system has also increased the effectiveness of its WRD (wide-range armature-damping) system, as the increase in flux density allows the extension of the armature beyond the coils, where it can “interface [more] directly” with the rubber-damper/platinum- disc sandwich that constitutes the WRD. “The cumulative results of these improvements,” says Ortofon, “[are] more lifelike reproduction, with nearly boundless imaging, dimensionality, and dynamics.”

While I’m not sure about “boundless imaging” (a phrase I literally don’t understand), each of Ortofon’s other claims for the Anna is borne out in the listening. What I find odd is that the company hasn’t also touted the most obvious and dramatic departure from the classic Ortofon sound: the Anna’s richer and more beautiful reproduction of timbre. Just as the Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement was unprecedentedly more voluptuous- sounding than its predecessors, so the Anna is unprecedentedly more beautiful- sounding than past Ortofons, with a considerably fuller, more extended, and more dynamic bass range and a richer, lovelier, more fully fleshed-out lower midrange than the A90, as well as a smoother, more natural upper midrange and more extended treble. Not for nothing was this cartridge named after Ms. Netrebko, whose fleet, powerful, gorgeously full-bodied voice it aptly calls to mind.

While the Ortofon MC Anna has undoubtedly gained lifelike density of tone color, it has not done so at the expense of any of Ortofon’s traditional virtues. Which is to say that this is still an extraordinarily fast, clear, ultra- high-resolution transducer with superb imaging and excellent soundstage width, depth, and height. And in spite of its newfound warmth and color, it is still a fundamentally neutral and transparent cartridge. Which is to say that what has been added to the sonic mix fills an absence rather than exaggerates something that was already present. The Anna sounds more lifelike with lifelike sources because it is, in fact, sonically more complete. While the Anna is probably more forgiving of mediocre-to- poor sources than the A90 was, it is not so rich and warm that it makes sow’s ears into silk purses; it simply makes lesser LPs more listenable and livable.

When you combine lifelike tone color with outstanding transient speed, exceptional resolution, and rock ’em/sock ’em dynamics, good things happen sonically. Indeed, I talk about several of them in my Technical Brain review elsewhere in this issue.
 

 

Do remember that, for all its sterling virtues, the TB gear is in the middle of the hi-fi chain—not at the start. If information isn’t recovered in the first place to be amplified and transduced, then it might as well not have been engraved in the grooves. Thus the magically realistic way that the Technical Brain suite of electronics in combination with the Raidho C 4.1 loudspeakers reproduce something like the violin and “string piano” pizzicatos of George Crumb’s Four Nocturnes [Mainstream/Time]—and reproduce them not just with astonishingly lifelike transient speed but with astonishingly accurate tone color—is in large part owed to the Ortofon MC Anna (in DaVinciAudioLabs marvelous Virtu tonearm). Ditto, for that matter, the sound of Janis Joplin’s inimitably supple voice (which, as you undoubtedly have heard for yourself, ranges from hoarse heartfelt whispers to reedy spine-tingling wails, often within the space of a bar or two) on “Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)” from Kozmic Blues [Columbia].

Of course, the A90 could reproduce some of these same things almost as well as the MC Anna. What it couldn’t do, however, is capture the sheer sock of the terrific rhythm section of Joplin’s band, which here has the kind of bass and power- range weight and impact that make it sound like a solid wall of sound (just as it would in a jazz or rock club). Nor could the A90 reproduce the through-the-floor synth notes on Dead Can Dance’s Into The Labyrinth [MoFi] or the doublebass ostinatos at the parodically solemn start of the otherwise free-wheeling Allegretto of Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra [Argo] with the same natural color, weight, and, yes, sheer goosebump-raising excitement of the Anna.

Like the best speakers and electronics, the Anna is also exceptionally good at preserving the lifelike timing of notes. While considerably warmer and more inherently beautiful- sounding than the A90, the Anna doesn’t overemphasize the harmonic series, as more romantic cartridges (such as Koetsus) do. Nor, for all its incredible speed and newfound power does it scant tone and decay. Everything unfolds at a natural pace— which along with the cartridge’s pinpoint imaging, sensational resolution of low-level detail, and excellent reproduction of soundstage ambience and dimensionality—makes for more of those moments when recorded things sounds so much like the real ones that your heart skips a beat.

This doesn’t just go for thrilling staccato or fortissimo passages, BTW; it is also there in lilting legato or pianissimo ones. Massed strings, for example, on well-recorded LPs like the Shostakovich I mentioned or the Poulenc Concerto for Two Pianos [Decca] have a silken sweetness that I don’t associate with previous Ortofons. The A90 would’ve deracinated those strings just a bit, making them a little “whiter” in timbre, a little less fully like themselves. Same for high-pitched instruments such as flutes, bells, and cymbals. Like bass and power-range instruments, they have more energy, but they also have considerably more color, which is mixed with that energy in proportions that make these instruments sound just that much more “there.”

All in all, what we have in the MC Anna is a cartridge that is far more likely to please far more listeners. It still has the kind of neutrality and resolution that transparency-first listeners crave; on first-rate sources it sounds as fool-ya realistic as any absolute sound listener could possibly hope for; and with its newfound density of color and dynamic clout, it is beautiful and exciting enough to delight the “as you like it” crowd.

Naturally, the Ortofon MC Anna receives my highest and most enthusiastic recommendation. It is a reference-grade cartridge that significantly improves upon the reference-grade cartridge (the A90) that preceded it. In fact, I think the Anna is the most natural-sounding cartridge the venerable Danish company has made in a century of doing business!

SPECS & PRICING

Output voltage: 0.2 mV 
Channel balance at 1kHz: 0.5dB
Channel separation at 1kHz: 25dB
Channel separation at 15kHz: 22dB
Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz +/-1.5dB
Tracking ability at 315Hz at recommended tracking force: 80μm
Compliance, dynamic, lateral: 9μm/mN
Stylus type: Special polished Nude Ortofon Replicant 100 on boron cantilever
Tracking force, recommended: 2.6 grams
Tracking angle: 23° Recommended load impedance: > 10 ohms
Cartridge weight: 16 grams
Price: $8495

Ortofon, Inc.
(914) 762-8646
ortofon.us

JV’s Reference System
Loudspeakers: Raidho C 4.1, Raidho C1.1, Estelon X Diamond, MartinLogan CLX , Magnepan 1.7, Magnepan 3.7, Magnepan 20.7
Linestage preamps: Soulution 520, Constellation Virgo, Audio Research Reference 5SE, Technical Brain TBC -Zero EX
Phonostage preamps: Audio Research Corporation Reference Phono 2SE, Technical Brain TEQ-Zero EX/TMC-Zero
Power amplifiers: Constellation Centaur, Audio Research Reference 250, Lamm ML2.2, Soulution 501, Technical Brain TBP-Zero EX
Analog source: United Home Audio UHA Phase 11 reel-to-reel tape deck, Walker Audio Proscenium Black Diamond Mk V record player, AMG Viella 12 record player, Da Vinci AAS Gabriel Mk II turntable with DaVinci Master’s Reference Virtu tonearm, Acoustic Signature Ascona turntable with Kuzma 4P tonearm
Phono cartridges: Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement, Ortofon MC A90, Ortofon MC Anna, Benz LP S-MR
Digital sources: Berkeley Alpha DAC 2, Soulution 540
Cables and interconnects: Synergistic Research Galileo, Crystal Cable Absolute Dream Power Cords: Synergistic Research Tesla, Shunyata King Cobra, Crystal Cable Absolute Dream
Power Conditioners: Synergistics Research Galileo, Technical Brain
Accessories: Synergistic ART system, Shakti Hallographs (6), A/V Room Services Metu panels and traps, ASC Tube Traps, Critical Mass MAXXU M equipment and amp stands, Symposium Isis and Ultra equipment platforms, Symposium Rollerblocks and Fat Padz, Walker Prologue Reference equipment and amp stands, Walker Valid Points and Resonance Control discs, Clearaudio Double Matrix SE record cleaner, HiFi-Tuning silver/gold fuses

Jonathan Valin

By Jonathan Valin

I’ve been a creative writer for most of life. Throughout the 80s and 90s, I wrote eleven novels and many stories—some of which were nominated for (and won) prizes, one of which was made into a not-very-good movie by Paramount, and all of which are still available hardbound and via download on Amazon. At the same time I taught creative writing at a couple of universities and worked brief stints in Hollywood. It looked as if teaching and writing more novels, stories, reviews, and scripts was going to be my life. Then HP called me up out of the blue, and everything changed. I’ve told this story several times, but it’s worth repeating because the second half of my life hinged on it. I’d been an audiophile since I was in my mid-teens, and did all the things a young audiophile did back then, buying what I could afford (mainly on the used market), hanging with audiophile friends almost exclusively, and poring over J. Gordon Holt’s Stereophile and Harry Pearson’s Absolute Sound. Come the early 90s, I took a year and a half off from writing my next novel and, music lover that I was, researched and wrote a book (now out of print) about my favorite classical records on the RCA label. Somehow Harry found out about that book (The RCA Bible), got my phone number (which was unlisted, so to this day I don’t know how he unearthed it), and called. Since I’d been reading him since I was a kid, I was shocked. “I feel like I’m talking to God,” I told him. “No,” said he, in that deep rumbling voice of his, “God is talking to you.” I laughed, of course. But in a way it worked out to be true, since from almost that moment forward I’ve devoted my life to writing about audio and music—first for Harry at TAS, then for Fi (the magazine I founded alongside Wayne Garcia), and in the new millennium at TAS again, when HP hired me back after Fi folded. It’s been an odd and, for the most part, serendipitous career, in which things have simply come my way, like Harry’s phone call, without me planning for them. For better and worse I’ve just gone with them on instinct and my talent to spin words, which is as close to being musical as I come.

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