I’ve posted this video before, but I’ll do it again as a follow-up to today’s post about Ortofon. Audio-Technica doesn’t publish the tracking specs for its cartridges, but a $39 model, the AT85EP, tracks at the rated performance of the Ortofon 2M Blue at $189. In fact, it does it at a lower tracking force. If you listen with headphones, you can hear slight buzzing from the discontinued Shure M92E, indicating mis-tracking.
Author: DOuG pRATt
Royal Mail Rascals
Steve Stanley of Now Sounds Records has produced a wonderful new CD box set scheduled for release on Friday.
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Atlantic-Recordings-Rascals/dp/B0CZ3NHLGG/
The last time I ordered a Now Sounds CD as an Amazon import, it didn’t arrive on the release date. I waited, then received a message from Amazon saying there was a delay. Then I waited some more, until eventually it arrived.
This time around, rather than saving the cost of shipping, and risking another delay, I ordered the set directly from Cherry Red Records in the UK.
Updates from Royal Mail were received…
… and, lo and behold, the set arrived today, three days before its scheduled release date.
But wait, what’s this? Royal Mail is being sold to a Czech billionaire? As with all such coincidences, it must be my fault. It comes from having an inherently guilty conscience.
Royal Mail owners to back £5bn takeover offer
It Could Be Worse
Imagine how bad the storms would be if climate change were real!
25 are dead across the US after weekend tornadoes. Texas is getting battered again
Ortofon the Obscure
This self-contradictory headline is obviously intended to attract attention. It caught mine. Saying that a particular brand dominates a market implies it isn’t obscure.
Why Does This Obscure Brand Dominate the Turntable Market?
https://www.gearpatrol.com/tech/ortofon-phono-cartridges-popular/
The article misses one reason why I favor Ortofon. They do something all cartridge manufacturers should do, by publishing the tracking ability of their products.
The 2M Red has a diamond-tipped stylus, and the 2M Blue has a solid, or “nude,” diamond stylus.
2M Red $99 Tracking ability at 315Hz at recommended tracking force 70 µm 2M Blue $189 Tracking ability at 315Hz at recommended tracking force 80 µm
Cleanly tracking a 70 µm (15 dB) cut in a record is very good, and tracking 80 µm (16 dB) is outstanding performance. Ortofon’s 2M Blue predecessor is the Super OM 20. It is also rated for 80 µm, which I confirmed in this test. Side 1 of the test record was pressed slightly off-center, resulting in “wow” being heard.
Something I first noticed fifty years ago, when replacing my American made Shure M91ED with the Danish Ortofon FF15E shown above, was the superior quality of plastic from the land of Lego.
“You-do-it” No Mo’
For ten years, my commute took me along Route 128, no longer dubbed “America’s Technology Highway.” On my way home, if I wasn’t stopping at Sight & Sound, the LaserDisc store in Waltham, I would sometimes hang out at You-Do-It Electronics in Needham.
As you can see, there’s a TV transmitter tower near the store. There are more of them on the other side, as those guy wires show. The Yagi directional outdoor antenna I have on the porch is pointed precisely at those towers, some 15 miles away.
I’m sure the engineers working at those nearby TV stations helped to keep You-do-it in business all of these years, but now the store is scheduled for closure. Boston and America’s Technology Highway aren’t what they used to be.
Meet Them in St. Louis
Shades of R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders! Look at what tastewar put up on YouTube today.
In 1998, I heard Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong perform “Saint Louis Blues” at the Lowell Folk Festival.
Before Ghost World, former Cheap Suit Serenader Terry Zwigoff was known for the documentary about his pal Crumb. His first film was about Louie Bluie.