Three paramount virtues triangulate Ortofon’s MC Anna Diamond phono pickup, which retails for a breathtaking $10,499: phenomenal control, über-transparency, and unprecedented dynamic range (at least in my experience of vinyl). No matter how thick, dense, intricate, or large-scale the source material, nothing seems to faze or frazzle it, including the detritus on so many records that detracts from the musical experience. It exhibits an astonishing clarity, unsurpassed and rarely equaled in pickups with which I have any familiarity. In concert with these qualities is a startling impression of precision, notably when it comes to imaging, soundstaging, and the rendering of whatever sense of location, venue, ambience, and acoustics the recording engineers have managed to capture. Its timing is absolutely impeccable, so it commands attention and demands involvement. Use this pickup for background while reading, writing, doing chores, or even partying, and I predict you’ll soon be too distracted by the music to pay much attention to whatever task is at hand.
Before I get into specific examples with music, some introduction. The original MC Anna took its name from the soprano diva Anna Netrebko, this new diamond version a further development of that product, reviewed so enthusiastically eight years ago by my colleague Jonathan Valin. As both pickups remain in the line, to avoid confusion I shall refer to the original as the “Anna,” the one under review here as the “Anna D.” Identical in size, appearance (save for the image of a diamond on the front of the latter), and mostly otherwise (though see sidebar for more detail), the principal difference between them is the Anna D’s diamond cantilever that replaces the boron equivalent in the Anna. I believe I’ve reviewed more Ortofon pickups than anyone else at TAS, but I’ve never heard the Anna nor any of the other Ortofons above the price of the original Windfeld (around $3800 when it first appeared in 2008), which was my reference for well over a decade until a zealous housekeeper accidentally annihilated the stylus assembly. That was about eighteen months ago, so I didn’t have it around for comparison. For this reason and others, I recommend everybody read Jon’s review, not least because he also reviewed the A90 that preceded the Anna. I’d especially advise paying attention to Jon’s remarks re: neutrality, about which I’ll comment further later on.
As I’ve done throughout the year of the pandemic, which happened to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth, I began my listening with Beethoven, specifically the lovely recording of the Pastoral Symphony in Bernstein’s Vienna cycle, remastered for vinyl in 2018 by DG to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the conductor’s birth. I once heard the great conductor William Steinberg call the Pastoral the most difficult of the Beethoven symphonies to conduct and to perform. He didn’t elucidate, but my guess is that it’s because it’s the most exposed of the nine, with an almost chamber-like translucency of line and texture (a musician friend tells me Steinberg may also have been alluding to how fiendishly difficult the composer’s writing for winds and strings makes it for players to stay in tune). There’s no place to hide inside thick textures or big gestures, not even in the thunderstorm of the third movement, and tempi for the most part are moderate. Despite the full complement of the Vienna Philharmonic, Bernstein achieves a corresponding translucency and clarity of line and texture that rival any chamber-sized or period-instrument performance in my experience, yet without sacrificing the kind of rich blend and depth of tone that large orchestras provide. Listen to how perfectly balanced the plucked string accompaniment is near the beginning of the second movement, or the way the dancing strings, winds (the Vienna oboe with just the right reedy character for which it is known), and horns pass the theme around at the beginning of the peasants’ dance in the third movement, or how the tympani cut through in the thunderstorm (but not too much). All this the Anna D presented with exemplary point and poise.
George Solti is not first conductor I ordinarily turn to when I want to listen to Beethoven, but his 1970 Ninth on Decca with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and a stellar quartet of soloists is powerfully recorded. The performance itself is surprisingly reticent by comparison to the Solti dynamo on evidence in the great Ring Cycle on the same label or the RCA Aida. Still, not all that many Ninths are all that well recorded, and this one is among the best: everything in focus, everything telling with force and clarity, while the presentation itself has tremendous scale. There is not quite the soundstage depth one might wish for—perhaps the price of having the chorus really present and articulate—but the width is panoramic. The registration of the instruments—the full-toned projection of the brass, for example, or the strength and muscle of the double basses at the opening of the last movement, where you can really discern the character of the instruments—is quite thrilling on its own terms, and make up for what has always struck me as a lack of real involvement on the part of the conductor.
From one kind of big band to another, we have MoFi’s 45rpm reissue of Sinatra at the Sands. Not even in the best of his Capitol sessions do I think Sinatra was ever better recorded than here. He’s in magnificent form, Count Basie’s band likewise, and the recording is stupendously alive, hugely dynamic, and fantastic in its see-through transparency. I had meant only to sample this set, but so enjoyable and involving was the Oroton’s presentation that I put pen and pad aside and stuck around for all four sides. Suitably elated, I pulled another big-band classic off the shelf, Duke Ellington’s Jazz Party in Stereo (Columbia). This has been reissued twice in fancy audiophile pressings by Bernie Grundman (one on 33, the other on 45), but I have only a vintage original. As the title and the album’s 1959 provenance suggests, the emphasis here is on sound, specifically stereophonic sound. As was typical of the time, there’s a lot of far-left, center, and far-right miking, the better to show buyers why they bought a second channel, but the channels don’t feel acoustically isolated from each other as they sometimes do in recordings of this vintage. There’s a real sense of an integral space and real depth to the soundstage (e.g., the drum set and high hat are in the right and set back). And while soloists are sometimes plastered smack up against the speakers in either channel, at other times they are placed less rigidly with breathing space around them (for his virtuoso tenor sax riff on Ready Go!, Paul Gonzalves was positioned between center and far left and slightly set back). According to the liner notes, for the cut Tymperturbably Blue Ellington set up a row of nine tympani “to offer stereo fans the unique experience of hearing the full musical scale stretching across the sound spectrum.” Unlike Sinatra at the Sands, Jazz Party in Stereo was a studio album, yet an impromptu audience showed up, was allowed to stay, and had no compunction about demonstrating their justifiably wild enthusiasm (I felt like applauding too—this is not an easy recording to sit still through). A lot of this made its way onto the final takes, so the effect of a live gig is nearly as palpable as Frank and the Count at the Sands. What began as a sonic spectacular—and it is—ended as musical spectacular as well. The Anna D dispatched it all without breaking a sweat.
Jazz as it is heard on these two albums should put to rest any concerns about the Anna D’s timing or its—her?—ability to “carry the tune” or get the “toes tapping.” As for detail, most of my regular readers know that I don’t talk much about this because it is my belief that all good or better audio equipment already reveals more detail than you are likely to hear in most live venues. I’ve sat several times in the first couple rows of LA’s Disney Hall, with very analytical acoustics, close enough at times to discern individual instruments among strings. Yet, even then I’ve never heard the degree of detail available in a lot of recordings. The Anna D will excavate any detail you’re likely to find on any record or in any recording. An offbeat album I’ve enjoyed ever since I acquired it almost 40 years ago is the soundtrack to the BBC documentary The Flight of the Condor, which is performed by two Chilean bands on instruments indigenous to the region, notably various sizes of pan pipes and flutes made from bamboo, plus string instruments such as guitar, tiple (which sounds a tad like a harpsichord), and charango (which uses an armadillo shell for the sounding box). Percussion is supplied by tambourine and bombo (a drum made from a hollowed-out tree trunk). Obviously, I have no idea what these instruments sound like in actuality, but the album itself, excellently recorded and rather close up, readily lets you hear the differences among the several instruments, notably the various kinds and sizes of the pan pipes and flutes (which have a very breathy sound). In cut 2 on side 1, Alturas, an instrumentally busy selection, one of the players softy hums and sings to himself. His vocalizings are not easy to make out—I’ve heard some pretty expensive setups that miss them almost entirely—but the Anna D revealed them pretty impressively.
Ortofon makes great claims for the imaging capabilities of the pickup, and it certainly passed all my usual tests for same. Whether the comings and goings in the Bernstein Carmen as it is staged on DG, the same for Solti/Culshaw Ring Cycle, or the Kings College Advent Sunday Festival of Lesson and Carols (Argo). This last is especially useful because it is supplied with diagrams and a description of how it was staged for the microphones, with detailed notes as to what you should hear on each cut as the choir enter, come forward, and move to the stalls. And the engineers did such a good job capturing the famous Kings acoustics that you can hear the chapel even when no one is performing in this or that part of it. For example, the choir enter deep in the left channel and move slowly forward, yet their sound carries across the middle and well into the left. This capturing of the acoustics, the atmosphere as it were, of venues is by no means as common a phenomenon on recordings as it should be if realism is the goal, but it is certainly managed on this recording and the Anna D nails it.
As the preceding observations should make clear, Ortofon’s MC Anna Diamond is so good a pickup in so many areas, indeed virtually every aspect of pickup performance that matters, including perceived distortion (unbelievably low) and tracking ability (very high), that I regret having to register a reservation. But register it I must, as it consists in the first-order matter of tonal balance. If I had to resort to a single adjective to describe the sound of the Anna D, it would be “brilliant.” Ordinarily, this is a highly positive descriptor, and for much music that is the case here. All manner of rock, for example, is terrifically engaging and involving, as is quite a lot of jazz. But strings are another matter, and most classical music abounds in strings. One of my long-time favorite recordings happens to be the first recording of chamber music I ever purchased, some 50 years ago: Beethoven’s A-minor Quartet, No. 15, by the Yale Quartet. This recording boasts a supremely probing and lyrical performance and string reproduction of surpassing truth and beauty in vintage analog sound (early Seventies). When it came to bringing this group into the room, the Anna D did as well as any phono pickup I’ve ever heard and far better than most, with an immediacy and transparency impossible to fault. But the violins were slightly brighter than I hear on pickups I know to be flat, at least up to beyond 10kHz, such as my trusty Shure V15 Type VxMR, discontinued in 2005 but still one of my prime references. Just to make sure, I went onto Qobuz and listened to the digital file, which sounded more natural, indeed, like what I know this recording to be with neutral components. I heard the same brilliance when I played the version by the Vegh Quartet in their vintage vinyl set of the late quartets on Valois, and the same reversion to a more natural sound when streamed via Qobuz.
Of course, it hardly needs to be said that frequency response deviations in components are not selective about which instruments or voices they affect when they fall into the range covered. It’s just that strings have a way of ruthlessly revealing deviations in the presence region and above. In the Bernstein recording of Beethoven’s Pastoral, referenced earlier, violins were likewise slightly brightened, as were the higher brass and winds (including horns). This brightening is even more noticeable on recordings that are already very bright, like the Sinatra/Billy May Come Swing with Me (Capitol, remastered). Such is the Anna D’s control and clarity that the built-in aggressiveness of May’s signature brassy arrangements is not only tolerable, it’s almost extra exciting in bite and edge. At the same time, however, I have to say that both here and with many other recordings, I was happy my McIntosh C53 has an onboard equalizer that allowed me to pull things down beginning in the presence region (a well-designed treble tone control would also be highly effective). Voices, particularly sopranos, are similarly affected. On Hooray for Hollywood (vintage Capitol vinyl), Doris Day is vividly projected—right into the room—but the voice is subtly altered upward, not in pitch, but in character.
In his review of the Anna, Jon Valin raised the issue of neutrality, commenting that one man’s neutral is another man’s dull or some other fellow’s analytical. [Jon Valin’s point was that, unlike many other Ortofon cartridges, the original Anna was warmer, richer, more “lifelike” in timbre than the company’s previous offerings.—JV] I agree, but I would further argue that if tonal characteristics of components constitute valid criteria by which to describe and thus evaluate them—surely no one would dispute this—then neutrality cannot be held hostage, or at least not completely held hostage, to mere subjectivity. I hope we can all agree that a component cannot be both neutral and warm, neutral and cool, neutral and bright, etc. Nothing of course is completely neutral, but a pickup like the aforementioned Shure V15 is exceptionally flat over the most critical part of the frequency range while the Anna D is not. Well along into the review period I found published measurements that confirmed my impressions, i.e., the rise begins a bit above 1kHz and continues rising smoothly to a peak of slightly more than 2dB around 13–14kHz. Now I realize 2dB doesn’t sound like a lot when you consider that most speakers measuring ±3dB over the useable frequency range are typically regarded as exceptionally flat. This may be true, but in matters like this the devil really is in the details. While two speakers may have that overall specification, one might present itself as very neutral, the other less so, even considerably less so, depending on where and how narrow or broad the deviations are. A rising trend like the Anna D’s throughout the presence region and into the highs is going to be audible even if the rise is small because it extends over a pretty broad expanse (1kHz to 12–14kHz).
How you respond to it is another matter. The tonal profile of the Anna D as I’ve described it is not grotesque or even egregious, nor is it unmusical thusly defined. I did most of my listening without using any tonal correction; and as I hope my remarks make clear, I had a very good time with this pickup and enjoyed it immensely, even with a lot of classical music. But there was rarely a time when I was unaware that I was listening to a presentation which—to call again upon the metaphor by Harry Pearson I find so useful—was effectively Yang all the way, as in bright, analytical, assertive, even forcible. It plays records with the precision of a scalpel and sound to match. But it is in no way thin or threadbare, let alone bleached. On the contrary, source permitting, imaging is holographic, harmonies are rich and colorful when they’re supposed to be, there’s an excellent impression of roundedness and body to vocalists and instruments. But the presentation always has a slight patina of extra lighting, as it were—rather akin, say, to raising the brightness level of a television image.
Alas, we do not live in a time when it is easy actually to listen to phono pickups before purchase, even in the vinyl-only shops. With several pickups that have now crossed the ten-thousand-dollar threshold, how can small specialty dealers be expected to have a variety of expensive pickups available for audition? Should you be tempted by the Anna D, and she is mighty tempting for lots of valid reasons, I suggest that if you already have a setup that leans toward the tonal characteristics described in the preceding few paragraphs, then she may prove a little too much of a good thing. If on the other hand you feel your vinyl playback could stand a bit of pizzazz, a jolt of electricity, a veil or three stripped away in the transparency department, some rhythmic kick and drive, it might be just the tonic you need, albeit at a scarily stratospheric price. Whatever your preferences, rest assured in that all the other areas of pickup performance the Anna D is state of the art.
Specs & Pricing
Output voltage: 0.2mV
Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz ±1.5dB
Compliance: 9µm
Stylus type: Special polished Nude Ortofon Replicant 100 on Diamond Cantilever
Tracking force: 2.4g
Internal impedance: 6 ohms
Weight: 16 grams
Price: $10,499
By Paul Seydor
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