Ortofon MC Diamond Cartridge

HiFi News Outstanding Product! 

Read the Review

This state-of-the-art product, representative of numerous Ortofon design elements and ideas, is truly exemplary of the highest degree of performance possible in contemporary analogue playback technology.

• Ortofon's greatest ever phono cartridge delivers music like you've never heard before
• The ultimate example of Ortofon's quest for true 'Accuracy in Sound'
• Overhead mounting cartridge for installing into a headshell
• Moving Coil cartridge design
• Luxury SLM Titanium body
• Flagship nude Ortofon Replicant 100 diamond stylus

The MC Diamond model represents the highest echelon of moving coil cartridges. As its name suggests, the MC Diamond takes the original design but uses a Diamond cantilever that, in combination with the Ortofon Replicant 100 diamond stylus, offers unrivalled transparency, speed and responsiveness in its information retrieval. 

TITANIUM STRUCTURE

The housing of the MC Diamond is made using Ortofon’s pioneering SLM technique. In production, fine particles of Titanium are welded together, layer-by-layer, to construct a single piece body devoid of unnecessary material. Using this technique, the density of the body can be precisely controlled, allowing for extremely high internal damping. The final result provides absolute freedom from resonance, allowing the MC diamond to perfectly suit a wide array of high-end tonearms.

THE FINEST TECHNOLOGIES AND MATERIAL CHOICES

Like previous Ortofon flagships, the MC Diamond makes use of the company’s best stylus profile. The specially polished Ortofon Replicant 100 diamond stylus profile boasts a thin and light shape, with an impressively long vertical contact surface making it as close as possible to an original record cutting stylus as possible. However, thanks to the technical advances made in developing the range of Ortofon flagship MC cartridges, the MC Diamond sees the stylus mounted onto a diamond cantilever; a feature that redefines the boundaries of analogue reproduction, presenting greater inner detail, subtlety, and depth like never before.

For the new MC Diamond cartridge, the Ortofon Wide Range Damping System (WRD) has been re-engineered to include an enhanced rubber suspension, specially developed in-house to ensure exceptional tracking and virtually eliminates distortion and resonance. This feature allows for optimal interaction between compliance and damping, improved stability and playback, and unparalleled sound quality. Created using a new rubber compound that utilises Multi Wall Carbon Nanotube technology (MWCNT), this new rubber suspension provides improved damping and enhances the overall performance of the MC Diamond cartridge. This Wide Range Damping (WRD) system offers more consistent movement with zero unwanted resonance, and thereby better stereo perspective and transient delineation.

THE BEST OF THE BEST

The bottom section of the cartridge has been constructed from a special proprietary Thermo-Plastic Elastomer (TPE) material, which provides additional damping properties.

The MC Diamond focuses on providing music in its entirety without compromise, offering an ideal balance of precision and musicality with fine attention to both micro and macro dynamics combined with fluid tonality and texture. It is also made to be relatively easy to partner with a wide-range of tonearms and turntables.

With an output impedance of 6Ω and a low-to-medium output voltage of 0.2mV, the MC Diamond is easy to partner with most phono pre-amps and step-up transformers – including Ortofon’s own ST-80 SE model. It’s also an ideal match for high-mass, high-precision tonearms with gimbal bearing systems.

Specs

• OUTPUT VOLTAGE (@ 1000HZ, 5CM/SEC.)
  0.2 mV
• CHANNEL BALANCE (@ 1000HZ)
  0.5 dB
• CHANNEL SEPARATION (@ 1000HZ)
  25 dB
• CHANNEL SEPARATION (@ 15000HZ)
  20 dB
• FREQUENCY RESPONSE ±2DB
  20 - 20000 Hz
• TRACKING ABILITY (@ 315HZ AT RECOMMENDED TRACKING FORCE)
  80 μm
• COMPLIANCE, DYNAMIC, LATERAL
  11 μm
• STYLUS TYPE
  Nude Ortofon Replicant 100
• TRACKING FORCE RANGE
  2.5 - 2.8 g
• RECOMMENDED TRACKING FORCE
  2.6 g
• TRACKING ANGLE
  23 °
• INTERNAL IMPEDANCE
  6 Ω
• CANTILEVER MATERIAL
  Diamond
• RECOMMENDED LOAD IMPEDANCE
  > 10 Ω
• CARTRIDGE WEIGHT
  17.5 g