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Thread: Ortofon SPU Listening

  1. #1
    Join Date: Jan 2009

    Location: Norwich

    Posts: 2,814
    I'm Hugo.

    Default Ortofon SPU Listening

    Just listening to the cheapest Ortofon SPU - the #1S, priced at a remarkably modest £425. It may be inexpensive, but it's very much an SPU, having an upfront, vibrant and musically enveloping character. A great introduction to what makes SPUs rather special, and a taste of what gets better as we move up the SPU range. I have most SPU models in stock, including the limited edition SPU Century.


  2. #2
    Join Date: Jan 2009

    Location: Norwich

    Posts: 2,814
    I'm Hugo.

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    Continuing the Ortofon SPU theme, here is the SPU Wood A that I'm currently listening to, courtesy of its lucky owner Peter, who resides in this Parish. The SPU Wood A is a remarkable sounding thing, having a lovely smooth and atmospheric character that just pulls the listener into the music, as do all SPUs but this one is clearly quite special. Amazingly, that's with an unfashionable spherical tip! Art Dudley of Stereophile likes the Wood A very much and wrote this in the December 2018 issue:

    "...the Ortofon SPU Wood A excelled at conveying instrumental and vocal colors and textures... ...after break-in it played music with an excellent and altogether natural-sounding sense of flow. That said, the Ortofon’s dynamic, impactful sound was there from the word go.

    ...Where the SPU (Wood A - red.) reigned supreme was in its ability to communicate nuances of musical performance, and in doing so tease poetry from mere sound... ...The orchestra’s sheer sense of sweep was also greatest with this generally large-sounding pickup, and the Wood A produced the most physical sounding timpani taps of any stereo pickup in the house...

    ...I was impressed by the SPU’s ability to pull me into the performance and never falter in fostering the illusion that I was hearing human hands stopping and bowing those strings, and not a bumpy plastic valley being dragged past a subminiature rock...

    ...The Wood A’s timbral balance was consistently lovely. Brass had bite, but not too much, and stringed instruments, fretted or bowed, were warm but not excessively so... The Wood A’s sound was tactile, dynamic, meaty, and colorful, with a great sense of scale. Notwithstanding its spherical stylus, the Wood A strikes me as the most accessible SPU I’ve heard... its musical and sonic strengths were enough to satisfy an SPU connoisseur. A distinguished new member of a very fine family."

    Well said, Art!

    https://ammonite-audio.co.uk/product...on-spu-wood-a/

  3. #3
    montesquieu Guest

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    Love that woody!

  4. #4
    Join Date: Jan 2019

    Location: Nottingham

    Posts: 130
    I'm Greg.

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    Aiming for one of these to be my next purchase. The body is made from painted Japanese beech wood, painted with urushi lacquer.

  5. #5
    montesquieu Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by Wegamus View Post
    Aiming for one of these to be my next purchase. The body is made from painted Japanese beech wood, painted with urushi lacquer.
    Sorely tempted too Greg.

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