Stereophile December 2014 http://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-144

Listening #144

By Art Dudley • Posted: Dec 5, 2014

No doubt every model in the current Jaguar lineup is at least good, if not great. Their specs speak of high power, nimble handling, blinky acceleration, and no shortage of creature comforts. Yet for all that, modern Jags don't interest me in the least, partly because I know I'll never have the money to buy one, and partly because the Jaguars of the 21st century lack the character of their mid-20th century forebears. It seems to me that Jaguars have, over the years, gone from being in a class of their own to being scarcely more than upmarket versions of everydamnthing else.

But imagine if Jaguar still made a 3.4-liter Mk.II, outwardly identical to the Mk.II of the late 1950s, complete with nonmetallic cream-colored paint and red leather seats, but updated with fuel injection, ABS brakes, airbags all around, and a six-speed gearbox made somewhere other than Coventry. (Untergruppenbach comes to mind.) You'd have to hide your valuables, because I would break the law to buy one.

And that—the car, not the crime spree—is precisely what the Ortofon company of today has managed to do, albeit on a smaller scale: Most of the products in their hi-fi line are decidedly modern, yet Ortofon has never ceased making subtly updated versions of their classic and altogether characterful SPU pickups. As Ortofon itself is fond of saying, "No other company has ever retained a phono cartridge model in their product line for so many years."

They ought to know: Copenhagen-based Ortofon was founded in 1918 (as Fonofilm Industri A/S), which makes it the oldest surviving manufacturer of domestic audio gear (footnote 1). Following the introduction of their first moving-coil cutter head (the very first one was made for Columbia/EMI by Alan Blumlein, Herbert Holman, and Henry Clark), Ortofon's domestic offerings

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Stereophile December 2014 http://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-144 began in 1948, with their Type A pickups and variants: monophonic moving-coil cartridges in a choice of black (Bakelite) or cream (thermoplastic) headshells with specs that included relatively high output voltage, high impedance, and low compliance, the latter owing to a stiff, shoehorn- shaped cantilever that was riveted in place. A short time later there came the Ortofon Type C pickup: virtually identical to the A, but with a stairstep-shaped cantilever that made possible a more compliant suspension—and tracking forces ranging as unimaginably low as 3gm (footnote 2).

The first SPU (for stereo pickup) followed in 1958. Designed primarily by the late Robert Gudmansen, Ortofon's two-channel MC cartridge featured a shorter, simpler aluminum cantilever, and achieved a significant reduction in moving mass through the use of smaller coils made with fewer turns of wire. Consequently, the SPU produced considerably less signal voltage than its mono predecessors—a characteristic that was addressed by the subsequent introduction of Ortofon's longer Style G headshell, offering room for a pair of miniature step-up transformers. (The very first production SPUs were built into the same short headshells as the Type A pickup; that headshell size, which endured in the Ortofon product line though 2008, thus became known as Style A.)

The Ortofon SPU was an immediate success, and more: In the years following its introduction, while Robert Gudmansen and other Ortofon engineers designed newer and ostensibly better cartridge types with gains in trackability, linearity, and suchlike, consumer demand for the SPU never went away. Some years were leaner for the line than others, but there always remained a core of audio consumers, especially in Japan, who would settle for nothing other than an Ortofon SPU.

Ortofon responded by never turning their backs on the faithful. First, they've continued to manufacture the Ortofon SPU Classic N ($828), which is commendably close in spec to the motor of a 1958 SPU: a low-compliance cartridge with an 18µm-radius spherical stylus and an internal resistance of 6 ohms. The Classic N, which is sold without the integrated headshell, can either be assembled into an existing SPU shell or, with the aid of Ortofon's optional SPU N Adapter, used as a standard-mount cartridge.

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Second, Ortofon has kept the SPU in the headlines, so to speak, by introducing, from time to time, brand new variants. At first, these differed from the original only in stylus type and headshell material, the former presumably to placate those who fear their records will be harmed by anything less modern than an elliptical tip (footnote 3), the latter because, until recently, Bakelite was rather passé. But as time went on, Ortofon experimented by changing other design elements: different materials for the cantilever, coil wire, and magnet, and even different structural elements for the motor. In every case, these SPU reissues were created with the stated goal of "respecting the original sound while improving technical data."

So it is today with Ortofon's new SPU 95th Anniversary pickup head ($3400), which itself derives from the company's 2008 offering, the SPU 90th Anniversary. The earlier product is remembered for a number of innovations, including a precision-machined bit of tubing, called a field-stabilizing element (FSE), that maintains optimal magnetic flux regardless of cantilever position; and a miniature motor frame, made of laser-welded microparticles of stainless steel, designed to enhance rigidity and dissipate unwanted energies. Both features are included in the new pickup, but here the latter process, called selective laser melting (SLM), is applied to particles of titanium instead of stainless steel, resulting in a frame that is less massive but no less rigid. If anything, the motor frame of the SPU 95th Anniversary is stiffer and better behaved than that of its predecessor, thanks to an improved damping structure and an enhancement of the frame's overall geometry.

Also for the SPU 95th Anniversary model (SPU 95 for short), the magnet strength has been reduced by a slight degree, to reduce the magnet's physical influence on the motor without a significant penalty in signal output. The result, according to Leif Johannsen, Ortofon's chief officer of acoustics and technology, is a slight enhancement of the pickup's dynamics. (Johannsen adds that the rubber compound used for the SPU 95's suspension is different from that of the A90, but that its performance is the same.) Other features of the SPU 95 include a nude elliptical stylus, silver-plated copper coil wire, and a Style G headshell made from ground-up pieces of dead farm animals. (Actually, it's made from a mixture of glue and powdered wood, but I prefer my description.) The SPU 95's recommended tracking force is 3gm, and its output at 1kHz/5cm per second is 0.3mV.

Unsurprisingly, the Ortofon SPU 95 performed well in my Thomas Schick tonearm, itself a friend of the moving coil. The first things I noticed in comparing the most recent Ortofon SPU to my Ortofon Classic N—which resides, like a hermit crab, in an early Ortofon Style A Bakelite headshell—were the enduringly rich, unmistakably SPU-like bass registers of the SPU 95, and the fact that the new pickup sounded somewhat pleasantly refined. The Classic N, by comparison, sounded a little coarse: textures a bit overdone, dynamic peaks somewhat ungraceful.

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The SPU 95 also impressed with its abundance of musical and sonic detail. In "The Soul of Patrick Lee," from John Cale and Terry Riley's Church of Anthrax (LP, Columbia C 30131), the SPU 95 offered greater vocal clarity than my older SPU. And with "Learning to Fly," from Tom Petty's Into the Great Wide Open (LP, MCA 10317), the reverb decay on the repeated stick-against-a-sawhorse percussion figure was far more evident with the newer SPU. But there were moments when I found myself nonetheless preferring the older pickup; the newer one sounded slightly more "scooped-out"—ie, the SPU 95's apparently less rich midrange seemed to make the frequency extremes more prominent.

But the Petty record's production, by Jeff Lynne, probably made it more vulnerable to being nudged in a decidedly hi-fi direction. On other records, such as Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch (45rpm remastering, Blue Note/Music Matters ST-84163), the A95 provided sufficient color—especially on Bobby Hutcherson's vibes, where the new pickup also did a superior job of staying clean during the most forcefully struck notes toward the end of "Hat and Beard."

The new Ortofon had good drive on "Cheyenne," from The David Grisman Rounder Album (LP, Rounder 0069), although the older Ortofon was a smidge better in that regard, doing a better job of signaling the tempo change—especially evident in the playing of fiddler Vassar Clements—from the legato A part to the more staccato B part. But the difference was slight, and both pickups were far better than the modern mean at pulling from this very slightly bright LP all the generous tone of Clements's fiddle—not to mention Grisman's mandolin, Tony Rice's guitar, Jerry Douglas's resonator guitar, and Todd Phillips's colorfully strong string bass.

Through it all, the A95's natural, colorful timbral presentation endured. Playing Norman Blake's simply arranged and beautifully recorded The Fields of November (LP, Flying Fish 004), the newer

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SPU actually outpaced the old in giving a better sense of body to fiddle and cello alike, and Blake's singing had a bit more chest. The same could be said of the SPU 95's portrayal of Dame Janet Baker's voice on her French Songs, with the Melos Ensemble of London (LP, L'Oiseau-Lyre SOL 298); additionally, the new SPU handled that record's many peaks—as in Ravel's "Mefiez-vous des blancs"—without distortion or any change in scale or perspective. Speaking of spatial performance, the SPU 95 also bettered the older SPU in its ability to convey depth and perspective and the "wholeness" of individual sounds, as in the very clear, dry recording, by Hans Knappertsbusch and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, of Wagner's Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (LP, Westminster/Speakers Corner WST 17032).

All in all, the SPU 95th Anniversary accomplishes precisely what Ortofon set out to do: It's a well- behaved, notably modern pickup that is quiet and imperturbable in the groove, with lots of detail and a fine sense of space on stereo records—yet it is also, identifiably, an SPU, with the sort of solid sound and fine sense of drive associated with relatively low-compliance devices. In fact, I was going to reach for a joke about how 95th anniversaries are seldom celebrated with such stiffly suspended tips, but decided against it. Instead, I'll simply say, Happy Birthday, SPU. And we all know what's coming up in 2018 . . .

More from the Deaf-Aids

The last time I devoted a portion of this column to a Beatles release was our March 2013 issue, when I offered my thoughts on The Beatles Stereo Box Set. That limited edition combined 14 albums (comprising 16 LPs) with a 12" by 12" hardcover book, the former intended as reissues of the UK originals. Unfortunately, because those LPs were mastered from CD-quality digital files— the creation of which entailed liberal re- equalization of the original recordings—and packaged in sleeves that bore only a surface resemblance to the 1960s releases, The Beatles Stereo Box Set was not the artistic success for which we had hoped. Although initially praised by critics, in time that 2012 release picked up a few negative reviews; of the ones I've seen, none was as negative as mine, which concluded, "The real thing is gone. And, frankly, if this is somebody's idea of how to bring it back, I'd rather they not try again."

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Two things happened after that—or, to be more precise, one thing happened while another went out of its way not to happen. The thing that didn't happen is that supplies of the limited-edition The Beatles Stereo Box Set never reached said limit: Nearly two years later, it remains easy to buy, often at fire-sale prices. The thing that did happen is that, by the summer of 2013, word began leaking out that Apple Records and Universal Music Enterprises intended to create and release a set of mono reissues of the Beatles' first 10 UK albums—the ones for which unique, definitive mono mixes were made with the artists' participation—and this time the LPs would be mastered from the original analog tapes; would not be subject to digitization at any point in the mastering chain; would be free from re-equalization; and would be packaged in jackets that duplicated both the artwork and the construction of the UK originals. Someone in a position of authority had obviously taken to heart the criticisms leveled at their Stereo Box Set; in light of which, my "I'd rather they not try again" soon turned to "I hope they'll try harder to get it right this time," which itself morphed into guarded optimism—and, in time, real excitement.

As I write this, my copy deadline was a few days ago, and I am without a doubt the last kid on my figurative block to receive his copy of The Beatles in Mono. (With exceptions, people who write very negative reviews tend not to get early records, let alone free records; adding insult to injury, the copy I pre-ordered in July from a prominent retailer arrived two days after the release date.) Being this late means being this skimpy: Today I can offer only a cursory review of The Beatles in Mono. But one thing is clear: Every criticism I leveled at its predecessor has been addressed.

I was worried for a moment: When I unjacketed the first LP, Please Please Me, out tumbled a bifold card, one side of which was printed with an ad for Love, the Cirque du Soleil's "reimagining" of the Beatles' hits—something I'm reasonably sure did not accompany the UK original. This insert turned out be the reissue's liner-note addendum: actually, a fine way of providing contemporary credits and comments without altering the original packaging. But I was pulled up short when I read that though the reissue engineers had tried their level best to cut the new lacquers direct from the Please Please Me masters, they'd been prevented from doing so on discovering that the fixative from the adhesive tape used to secure physical edits had gone rogue and migrated to adjacent layers on the spool: The mastering deck's playback head was getting gummed up, spoiling the sound and posing a real risk of damaging the irreplaceable master tape. The decision was made to make an analog copy to stand in for the original—something that, unlike the disc mastering itself, could be done one song at a time. This was not just a reasonable solution: It was the only solution.

My friend Jeff Friedman loaned me his mono Parlophone Please Please Me, and I set about comparing old and new using my distinctly mono-friendly analog rig: Garrard 301 turntable, EMT 997 tonearm, EMT OFD 15 mono pickup head, Hommage T2 step-up transformer, and Shindo Masseto line-plus-phono preamplifier, which Ken Shindo had modified to include a true (footnote 4) mono source selection. In a nutshell, the reissue had a virtually identical range and tonal balance to the original, and about 90% of the impact—which, as these things go, and considering the whole glue-on-the-tape-head thing, was better than I might have hoped. Adjusted for volume—the reissue of Please Please Me appears to have been cut at a slightly lower level than the original—the new one was obviously analog and entirely satisfying.

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Apparently none of the other master tapes had deteriorated to such an extent, which is not to say that the task before remastering engineer Sean McGee and remastering supervisor Steve Berkowitz required less than the utmost finesse. The results they have achieved are well worth the trouble and the wait. Of the albums I've auditioned closely, only one other—1965's Help!—fell noticeably short of the original Parlophone mono, and even then by only a small margin. (The reissue has slightly grainier trebles than my original—which I found was true of most titles in the new box, but to such a lesser extent that the distinctions border on the inaudible.)

From there, all is very well indeed. The Beatles' second UK album, With the Beatles, is brilliantly served by its new reissue, with terrific touch and impact: The reissue sounds so exciting, and delivers so much of the Beatles' characteristic musical charm, one can scarcely remain seated while listening to it. And for some listeners, the reissue of Rubber Soul included in The Beatles in Mono may be the gem of the box: This brand-new mono LP is probably the best-sounding, most authentic available version of this important record.

But for my money, the new Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the most sonically impressive of all. It is, for all intents and purposes, a literally perfect copy of the original: I'm certain I couldn't tell the new mono LP from my mono UK original. The new one has the same timbral balance, the same scale, the same color, the same range, the same punch—and the same hypnotically compelling quality, from start to finish. If I were an engineer and this was my sole accomplishment, I would be very damn proud. The packaging for the new Sgt. Pepper's is itself especially fine: Colors appear perfect (my original copy is the most uniquely well-preserved Parlophone in my collection), the stock and the coating have the right feel, the cutouts and (unused) color inner sleeve are dead on, and Apple/Universal even remembered to have the title facing the wrong way on the spine, and to omit the apostrophe.

Sgt. Pepper's gets a 10 out of 10 in packaging, while most of the other titles in The Beatles in Mono earn a solid 8 or 9: They are commendably close, although nutty collectors will notice that the card stock is a little too heavy on some, and that the serial number on the front of The Beatles is a little too big and a little too dark. (The jacket's embossed title is microscopically oversized, but that's too nutty to even mention.) That said, Apple and Universal deserve praise for their decision to print each jacket made for The Beatles with a unique serial number.

Artwork and text for all albums in the box appear to have been scanned from the originals, but the scans are exceptionally well done, without the oversaturated midtones that have detracted from earlier reissues. Obsessive collectors could point to the potential gains of rescreening photographs and resetting type, as one sees in the literally peerless work of the Electric Recording Company, but that's why the ERC has to charge £300 per LP—that and the fact that they spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in searching out, acquiring, and reconditioning their 1950s- and '60s-era, all- tube playback and mastering gear, use of which would surely have sure negated any and all remaining reservations regarding the new vinyl's sound. (The sonic score for The Beatles in Mono, averaged over 14 LPs, is close to 9 on a scale of 10; none of the new ones are actually better than the old, and I wouldn't expect them to be.) But that's the cost of true perfectionism: In programme as in equipment, the last 10% of gains are the most expensive of all to achieve.

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My only lingering complaint: Except for The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper's, none of the LPs come with the correct inner sleeves—which, for most of the other titles, would have been the one that advises the buyer to "Use an Emitex cloth to clean your valuable records." No big deal, but it seems that it would have been such an easy thing to do.

The Beatles in Mono is doubly recommendable. As someone who has beaten the drum for mono LPs since long before my first column for Stereophile (this one being No.144), I'm comfortable in suggesting that, with the appropriate playback gear, you will hear more color, impact, verve, swing, and sheer humanity of music-making from these LPs than from any other format or vinyl edition other than the Parlophone originals. And because the mono mixes represent the Beatles' true intentions, listeners whose previous experience is limited to the group's catalog in stereo will be shocked by the musical distinctions found throughout these reissues—especially on The Beatles.

If the boxed set is sold out by the time you read this, you'll find just as much pleasure in having individual titles from this series. The book is lovely, and contains a few mildly revelatory details, but for now I've set aside the actual box in favor of keeping the new LPs on the shelf, next to the old. They're easier to get at that way, and these days I'm getting at them a lot.

God bless the company that heeds criticism, especially when the air isn't exactly thick with the stuff.

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