Ortofon just announced a new $999 2M moving magnet cartridge: the 2M Black LVB 250 in honor of Ludwig Von Beethoven's 250th birthday. More than just a re-badge, the 2M Black LVB 250 incorporates, among other enhancements, the nude Shibata stylus and boron cantilever found on the more costly MC Cadenza Black.
Ortofon today in a Facebook video announced a new moving coil cartridge called Verismo. I've had it here for a few days and tomorrow will post an exclusive video interview I conducted with Ortofon's Chief Officer of Acoustics and Technology Leif Johannsen, who is responsible for the design.
At Making Vinyl Hollywood, 2019 Austria-based PHONOCUT demonstrated a still in development all-analog based home vinyl cutting system that uses blank vinyl (not lacquer) discs. At 4:52 in the embedded video at the above link you can watch the compact system cut a record and learn more about it.
Ortofon recently announced a switch from Boron to Sapphire cantilevers on all but its more expensive "Exclusive Series" (photo is of original Boron cantilevered Quintet).
It’s beginning to look a lot like. . . Ortofon. (What, did you think another word was supposed to fill that sentence out, or something?) The European manufacturer offers a number of cool new tonearms and accessories to consider as possible stocking stuffers before the holidays overrun us all, so read on to see what this venerable Danish company has in store for you and/or the analog lovers on your shopping list. . .
Ortofon's Chief Officer of Acoustics and Technology Leif Johannsen and Dee Hustinova, Ortofon U.S. General Manager stopped over today to show me a brand new Ortofon cartridge the design of which Leif has just completed. I can't talk about it or show it (that's why it's in his cupped hand).
Those of us needing sturdy wall-mount options for our turntables always have to look quite carefully at shelving-gear specs to ensure these products are truly capable of accommodating the weight of our favored ’tables. To that end, Pangea Audio has upped the ante with their just-announced Turntable Wall Mounted Premier SE Shelf MKII. Read on to see if the new Premier SE Shelf MKII might suit your own particular turntable-shelving needs. . .
See and hear described new and upgraded turntables from Thorens L'Art du Son, Mobile Fidelity, Thales, Landmesser Audio and Blackstone. A translating glitch leaves the impression that Blackstone's Pabst motors are new. They are new old stock, not newly manufactured ones.
Parasound today introduced the John Curl designed JC3+ phono preamplifier, an improved version of the highly regarded JC3. The original JC3 proved problematic for cartridge loading fetishists in that it offered limited fixed moving coil loading of 100ohms or "wide open" 47kOhms chosen via via custom-made NKK selector switches with gold-on-silver contacts.
Pro-Ject just announced the release of its newest and most sophisticated phono preamp, the RS2. The no op-amp, "hand made" design built in the E.U. is fully balanced and true dual mono. The RS2 features MM gain of 40,43,46 and 50dB and MC gain of 60,63,66 and 70dB with continuously variable MC input impedance from between 10 and 1000 ohms. Capacitance for MM can be set to values between 50 and 400pF.
The usually conservative (engineering-wise, don't know his politics) Ron Sutherland has thrown all electronic caution to the wind and will shortly introduce the Phono Loco, his first venture into what's commonly called a "current mode" phono preamplifier.
When we saw some cool Plinius gear in the system utilized for a Kuzma demo at AXPONA 2023, it reminded us that we needed to see what’s been going on with the vaunted New Zealand-born company of late — and thus, here we are with our eye firmly planted on the Plinius Koru phono preamp. Read on to get all the Koru spec details. . .
Sempersonus, a new audio company based in Lisbon, Portugal just announced its first product: a turntable based upon an idler wheel-type drive it calls "Epicyclic Drive", because the motor and pulley directly drive the platter's inner rim.