Ortofon MC25FL MC cartridge, If you can find it, BUY IT

tabarddn51

tabarddn51

Super Member
Hi guy's just thought I would let you know about this little hard to find GEM.
Been looking for one for a while to go in my Temaad Merlin Titanium 12" arm as I had read it was a true giant killer.
Found a near mint one on F/bay a few weeks ago & it arrived on Thursday, paid a little more than I should have $210, (I think it was around $450 new) purely on it's reputation.
Of my current two main cartridges I have are a K/Rosewood & Dyanvector XX1, the R/W is sublime Koetsu sound but in my system the cart has an narrow & I mean narrow sound stage. The XX1 is totally opposite, having a wide sound stage that at time can clime down the walls, but does not have the voicing of the R/Wood or for that matter the bass.
Well believe it or not, and many of you will not this little beauty straddles the two of them. I am gobsmacked how what is basically a fairly budget cartridge can produce music like it does. Anyone want to bay a R/Wood or XX1

Cheers Derek

PS, Sorry for the misspell on the heading, cannot edit it. should be BUY not bye !!
 
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Glad to read your favorable comments since I just grabbed a NOS one. Yet to be delivered. I had read some other favorable comments which is why my interest is there. More to come. BTW - you should be able to edit your own title by using the thread tools at the top of the thread.
 
Hi Guy's when I first mounted it the other day I could not align it correctly as my printer was out of ink. Today I have printed the alignment for the cartridge (courtesy of Carl Hoffman's alignment page). Re-aligned cartridge and also ran it through my de-magnetizer.
Well that has taken it up a couple of more notches & it certainly has to be heard to believed. I 1st heard about it a few years ago when I stumbled on "grgaudio's" list of graded cartridges. He graded the 25FL at 94 / 100, well into his top 30 cartridges out of a list of 500. He actually grades it higher than both my XX1 (93) & the R/Wood (90). Not sure I totally agree with him now I have heard it, But it is definitely better than the Shelter 501 I let go off recently, which was graded at 91. So yes in my estimation, this cart is a very special best, especially and a spectacular buy at the price I paid for it.

(Still can't figure out how to change my mistake in the title though!!)

Cheers Derek
 
you can edit titles as a perk of being a subscriber for the $25 per year it costs. Also opens up Barter Town where you can buy and sell and ask for stuff.

Ortofon cartridges, the good MC ones are something special. I have an MC-20 and it has been enjoyed for years. Borrowed an MC30Super and that one kept me awake at night grabbing the next record to spin. would love to bolt an A90/95 on the end of my Magnepan arm as it looks so cool. But I'm a firm believer in the Ortofon Sound in the 500 up level. I'll know more soon, a friend got a new stylus for his VMS20E and we'll put it on his table when I get that machine all ready to go. It's been resting for 20 years.
 
Blue Shadow said:
you can edit titles as a perk of being a subscriber for the $25 per year it costs. Also opens up Barter Town where you can buy and sell and ask for stuff.

Ortofon cartridges, the good MC ones are something special. I have an MC-20 and it has been enjoyed for years. Borrowed an MC30Super and that one kept me awake at night grabbing the next record to spin. would love to bolt an A90/95 on the end of my Magnepan arm as it looks so cool. But I'm a firm believer in the Ortofon Sound in the 500 up level. I'll know more soon, a friend got a new stylus for his VMS20E and we'll put it on his table when I get that machine all ready to go. It's been resting for 20 years.
Click to expand...

If you can get a good deal on an Ortofon Windfeld grab it, as it give you a lot of the A90 goodness for a more affordable price. I will say this is one of my more enjoyable cartridges. Although I have a soft spot for the Cadenza Blue also.

A90.jpeg

Cheers
Mister Pig
 
Thanks guy's on how to revise the heading. At $25 ($40 NZ) I can withstand the embarrassment. Would rather spend the money on new vinyl like Adele 25.

Cheers
 
Hard to get the value out of the subscription if you aren't able to take advantage of the BT deals.

Second way is to use the report button on your first post and ask a mod to change the title. We don't want you to get too embarrassed.
 
Hi Guy's, Now this is interesting, on reading through some more reviews, one reviewer claims that the MC25FL sound even better with it's body removed. I know this works for the 103, but that's a plastic body. The MC25 is some type of Alli alloy body, which is what me and many other people re-bodied the 103 with!!
Anyone any idea how to remove the body.

Cheers Derek & thank you mister administrator for correct the title
 
needlestein said:
All you really need with those is a nice heavy headshell to ensure proper arm/cartridge matching and a dab of modeling clay on the top between the cartridge and the headshell.
Click to expand...
I thought that Blu-Tack was used for this. But I don't keep up with everything DL103.
 
Hi Guy's, Been using the MC25FL for a quite a few days now, but had started to find it fatiguing to listen to after a couple of hours. Luckily at this time I am following a thread on SRA measurement & adjustment over on DIYaudio. So I checked out the MC25FL using my soldering headset with light & high magnification glass to view the stylus. Although my Temaad Titanium arm was set parallel to the platter the stylus looked on to steep an angle, so I lowered the VTA to bring the stylus into more like the 92 degrees that was suggested was optimum. Well that seemed to do the trick, it is now far less fatiguing to my ears now and I am also hearing more fine detail. Cheers
 
Adjusting the angle of the stylus in the groove, VTA generally, is like focusing the lens on a camera. If the needle is out by too much it can smear the sound which I guess could lead to listening fatigue. Unfortunately, each album can be slightly different and adjusting for each album would require on-the-fly VTA adjustment and record keeping to know where to set the arm for each album, the reason these adjustments have calibration marks.

Glad you got your cartridge dialed in as close as I would for mine. I don't adjust for each album.
 
American modeling clay can leave an oily residue. It will stain paper if you leave a lump of it sitting on paper. I don't know if that residue can cause any negative problems in contact with audio components, but I would be concerned about it. I also don't know if the Plasticene brand clay has this oily property. Bluetac, in my experience, isn't oily.
 
tabarddn51 said:
Hi Guy's, Been using the MC25FL for a quite a few days now, but had started to find it fatiguing to listen to after a couple of hours. Luckily at this time I am following a thread on SRA measurement & adjustment over on DIYaudio. So I checked out the MC25FL using my soldering headset with light & high magnification glass to view the stylus. Although my Temaad Titanium arm was set parallel to the platter the stylus looked on to steep an angle, so I lowered the VTA to bring the stylus into more like the 92 degrees that was suggested was optimum. Well that seemed to do the trick, it is now far less fatiguing to my ears now and I am also hearing more fine detail. Cheers
Click to expand...

Actually what you describe has been the knock against Ortofon cartridges from that era. They were always known as cool sounding, a favorable expression at best, and bright when not favorable. The speaker systems of that day had more character than now, so with a sweet speaker you have a synergestic match, and with a bright one...an aggressive combination.

Over the years Orotofon keeps refining their designs. But the current cartridges like the Cadenza have some small percentage of DNA from those early MC 20, 25, and 30 designs. They have just managed to add a small degree of sweetness without harming all that lovely setail and shading the early cartridges had.

I doubt you will ever change the character of that cartridge, but system matching, and a bit of tweaking can go a long ways to getting it to show its best side.

Cheers
Mister Pig
 
I have one of these on the way from a trade and will see how it compares to my current go-to, an AT33PTG.
 
Got the cartridge mounted up and did some preliminary listening, using 100 ohms load. I find it sounds very nice but a little light in the bass. The manual says to load it at greater than 20 ohms so I'll probably experiment a bit. How is everyone loading theirs?
 
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