New arrival - budget Ortofon SPU #1
I was running a 1960s vintage SPU GE on my Garrard 401 recently, till Adam (Westlower) borrowed it for this own 401/SME 3012 project .. unsurprisingly it was such a nice fit in his setup that it ended up not coming home again.
The question for me was what to replace it with ... I've been intrigued by the SPU #1 since it was announced about 18 months ago. There are spherical and eliptical versions, using bonded styli rather than the nude styli of the higher up models at getting on for twice the price, but as far as I can make out, there are few other significant differences, possibly in the coils though the specs are pretty mainstream for SPU.
Of course it's not that long since the GM MkII models (formerly entry level but now intermediate between the #1 and the fancy top end SPUs) were down in this sort of price range, but they have been steadily drifting up to the 1000 Euro mark. Vintage SPU prices have been heading steadily upwards as well, but not yet as such a steep rate - to my thinking the GM MkII are being priced out of contention, why pay this sort of money when a vintage Alnico model probably sounds better and can still be had for less? In this context the SPU#1 would seem to be a sensible move by Ortofon, while the repositioning of the GM range looks more than a bit cynical.
Anyway, I took the plunge ... Deco Audio had one in stock and it arrived this morning in time for some New Year fun. I went for the spherical as the other SPU I have at the moment - a Royal N - has the Replicant stylus which as I understand it is a fancy eliptical, while the Miyajima Madake is a Shibata. I do like spherical styli generally as often you gain musicality in return for often what is only quite a modest loss of detail compared to fancier profiles, while they are also pretty kind to the groove even at high VTF settings, but although I have several spherical MMs, I didn't have one on an MC until this arrived.
First impressions - bit stiff out of the box (as you'd expect) but took only 3-4 sides to improve considerably. By now, a few more sides in, it sounds just like an SPU should - big and bold and musical, free and easy at the high frequencies, punchy and dimensional in the mids, and although the bass is still a tad stiff, I would expect that to continue to improve. It tracks like a train (as you'd expect from a propely set up low compliance cartrige at 4g in a heavy arm).
Seems to be a good match with the high mass AT1503 I'm running on the Garrard, though it does seem to ride a lot lower in the groove at the recommended 4g compared to the Royal N, so there may possibly be some suspension differences between it and the higher up models. Compliance is slighly higher at 10um vs 8 for the Royal N but that may well suit many arms out there, certainly I would expect this to work nicely on a Jelco 750D so long as it had the heavy counterweight.
Proper critical listening and comparison to the Royal N (which lists at between three and four times the price) to follow once it's got a few more sides under its belt. But right at the moment with Louis Armstrong from the 60s playing it's sounding rather promising, tonally spot on with a nice 3D soundstage.
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Originally Posted by Bigman80
