A short history of early Ortofon pickups

[DevonOjas]

So sorry, I did forget to mention that I live in New York City.

Barry, I have several SPUs, both A and G.

Type A shells have a square contact pattern, the same as the G, but the alignment pin is on the bottom of the bayonet instead of the top like on G shells, or SME type standard shells. I believe that only some very early SPU A shells were made for EMT decks (with the diamond pattern) before they added the magnifying glass. Type A shells can be used on Ortofon G arms with the addition of an adapter that adds the necessary length to achieve the proper offset angle.

I happened to find a photo of an A shell with the cartridge removed this morning and I thought I'd upload it here so that you could clearly see the weights I was referring to.

All the best,
Devon

[Marco]

Thanks, Devon - I've added those details to your profile

Marco.

[Barry]

Hi Devon

I’ve given some more thought to your enquiry and I now appreciate the difficulty of ‘dating’ Ortofon SPUs, since they remained in production from their introduction in 1959 up until 2007, when production was stopped owing to non-compliance with EU RoHS rules. I don’t know if any changes were made either to the mounting block or to the label on the headshell that would allow one to date them.

Modern SPU-As are modern SPU generators (now manufactured for Ortofon by Nagaoka in Japan) fitted into Bakelite Type A shells.



As can be seen from the photographs in the above website, these new SPU-As can be distinguished by the flat gold coloured label inscribed ‘ortofon since 1918’, in lower case san serif lettering. The mounting block within the headshell way well be made from aluminium or of nickel-plated brass; either having a silver colour, that you mention. The following is an interior shot of a modern SPU –G (E?), showing the ‘silver coloured’ mounting block.



The following shows a 1980’s SPU-A; it is difficult to see the colour of the mounting block although it does look as if it might be made of brass.


And the following shows the cartridge in its presentation case.

From this you can see the label is flat, black and has ‘ortofon’ written in san serif letters.

I suggest that for further information you might try Oswald Mill Audio
http://www.oswaldsmillaudio.com/vintage.html

Sorry to be of little help
Regards

[BTH K10A]

I know this is an old thread but just for completeness here is the leaflet for the Ortofon SC which I believe was the first Ortofon stereo cartridge.

[Barry]

I know this is an old thread but just for completeness here is the leaflet for the Ortofon SC which I believe was the first Ortofon stereo cartridge.

Hi Andy,

Thanks for that. Do you know the date and provenance of this leaflet? I'm curious about the notation: the SPU was Ortofon's own designation for the stereo pick up.

I'm wondering if the designation 'SCA', 'SCB' and 'SCG' were for the American market. In Europe the SPU fitted into the whale-shaped headshell was known as the SPU-G.

Regards

[The Grand Wazoo]

This might help answer that question Barry:
http://www.vinylengine.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13098
welcome back by the way!

[Barry]

This might help answer that question Barry:
http://www.vinylengine.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13098
welcome back by the way!

Thanks Chris,

I tend to become a bit of an obsessive over this sort of detail. It would seem to be a merely a difference in designation as I suspected, but I would like to know why the two notations existed.

One of the posts on the vinylengine site states:

"The only difference between an Ortofon SPU and a non-SPU Ortofon MC cart is the compliance. The use of different materials and different styli do not change the actual design. The EMT TSD-12 and the original TSD-15 are simply rebadged SPUs with a different headshell. The TSD-12 logically had a 12um stylus and the TSD-15 15um.

Unless otherwise identical, there is probably only minute differences between the TSD-12 and 15. If there is an "SPU sound," it's related to the big, heavy and dense alnico magnet and short cantilever."

This answers a question I have been asking for a long time (though I didn't know of the TSD-12). It might be of interest to Marco.

Regards

[BTH K10A]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for that. Do you know the date and provenance of this leaflet? I'm curious about the notation: the SPU was Ortofon's own designation for the stereo pick up.

I'm wondering if the designation 'SCA', 'SCB' and 'SCG' were for the American market. In Europe the SPU fitted into the whale-shaped headshell was known as the SPU-G.

Regards

I think the leaflet is from about 1958 but I can't be sure.

The SC range of cartridges were a stereo development of the Mono A, B & C cartridges and used two of the mono coils. They were unduly complex and the later SPU was a simpler design. Whether it was better I don't know as I have only seen SC cartridges in pictures. There was one auctioned on ebay a few years ago that sold for over twice what an old SPU would fetch.

This is an SCGC? although in the G type headshell that appears to be original.
The cartridge is certainly different to an SPU

[Barry]

I think the leaflet is from about 1958 but I can't be sure.

The SC range of cartridges were a stereo development of the Mono A, B & C cartridges and used two of the mono coils. They were unduly complex and the later SPU was a simpler design. Whether it was better I don't know as I have only seen SC cartridges in pictures. There was one auctioned on ebay a few years ago that sold for over twice what an old SPU would fetch.

This is an SCGC? although in the G type headshell that appears to be original.
The cartridge is certainly different to an SPU

That sounds about right, Ortofon introduced the stereo cutter in 1957 and a stereo cartridge in 1958. I had always assumed this was the SPU, however there is a link from the vinylengine site to a Japanese site that says the same as you and even has a photograph of a similar looking cartridge. On the other hand however, the vinylengine site also has posts claiming the SCAs are SPUs in Type A headshells and the SCGs are SPUs in Type G shells. Not sure where this places SCBs.

It seems you have unearthed a very interesting bit of early Ortofon history, entirely new to me. It would seem likely that Ortofon did create a stereo pick up by combining two type A or type B mono generators into one unit, and these would of necessity be complex structures and difficult to make. The SPU as we know it would seem to be Ortofon's response to this challenge. I need to do some research and then will amend my Library article (of the same name). If I do so, would you mind your photograph of the SCG being used? You would of course be credited with the image.

[BTH K10A]

Hi Barry

It's not my Photo. I found it on the web ages ago so don't know who to credit to.

This link has more photos of an SCA cartridge. They look familiar, possibly the one that was sold on ebay. Hope it helps add to your history

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-8/354094/2072797