The Vinyl Guide - Upgrading to an Ortofon 2M Bronze Cartridge 

I'm sure the Quintet Bronze is excellent. But I never found the 2M Bronze to be 'harsh'. On the contrary, I've found it to be very balanced. However, when I upgraded to 2M Black, I experienced a really great (MM) cartridge. However, I'm sure the MC Quintet Bronze is a dream.

I've also got the red cartridge and it's great. Having said that, whenever it needs changing I'll probably upgrade to the blue. I think my turntable is just about worthy.

The red is perfectly fine it's suitable and better than most other cartridges it'll treat your vinyl right.

Nah just buy them all lmao 🤣

Alpha Visari interesting how different people react differently. I found the blue a mandatory upgrade over the red, valuewise. The bronze offered more resolution and upper end extension, but came across as hard, edgy, and dry to me, and ultimately unpleasant. The black provided even more extension and clarity, but restored the listenability, and made me feel it was definitely worth the additional money. It’s good the bronze did the trick for you, as you saved several hundred dollars. That said, none of the Ortofons sounded lush, warm, or romantic, so would be a bad choice for someone looking for that

@@fc872e1 Many people fail to stray outside the comfort zone regarding vtf with the 2Ms. Just so you know-once set up properly,the blue prefers a 1.89/1.92 vtf if you want the warmer sound.The bronze I track at 1.48 to bed in-then run at1.85. One letdown of the 2M series is all the hollow plastic in the stylus body.A tweek I tried and found successful was to cut a piece of sorbathane to fit the hollow box in the centre/front.Others who tried this hack used plasticene with same result.It helps tame resonance coming from the record surface/stylus and adds overall mass to the cart. Just be sure to rebalance the arm and check the vtf!Try it on an old stylus first-you will notice the high ends tamed and bass a tad cleaner.

Bronze to Black = minimal ? Uhhh, No. Had red , the highs were fuzzy , paid $440 for a Bronze , WOW !! but the upper end still wasnt as crisp as I wanted. Just purchased a pre owned Black stylist , I think I'll be happy now. Happy listening everybody.

Thanks

Hi Kitten, you probably have it sorted by now but I noticed no reply. What sort of mount does your Technics linear arm have? I'm thinking it will be what is called a P mount. Google P mount, look at some pics and get back to me, I'm happy to help you if I can.

I very much doubt the bronze would even stand up next to the Kiseki, it would likely be a pretty big step backwards. Though I hear the purple heart is either a love it or hate it kind of deal. Have you tried a Lyra or a Dynavector? I like the Denon MCs as they give that rich sound, but it might be worth looking in to Audio Technica's top end MCs as well, they give great value.

Aaron Liebelt will bronze work with a red cartridge?

@@Love_Street It might, but the red and blue engines are different from the bronze and black.

@@Love_Street no, the Red can only be upgraded to Blue. Bronze shares the cartridge with Black only so these two are interchangeable.

If you run a MicroLine stylus like the Bronze, it should give you at keast twice (if not thrice) the life compared to an elliptical stylus like the Blue or Red.

Ben Watkin Can you clarify what “sounding too digital” means? I’ve been reading reviews which I also read that. Looking for a stylus with a flat FR throughout which sounds great for digitising.

Hi Ben. Has that cartridge bedded in now? Mine took about 25 hours and then bingo. Also up until that point minor adjustments in setup couldn't easily be ascertained, since then setting up by ear has become a doddle. I am using mine in a Transcriptors Hydraulic/SME combo which enjoys 1.8 to 1.85g down force and a marginally tail up profile. Capacitance on my M1 Vinl is set at 200pf if you have that option give it a crack :). I think the Bronze sounds more digital than the Black, having started with the Red and having gone through the range.

Donk I’d like like your thoughts. I had built my modest system with a blue. It sounded great. When the stylus faded I moved to the black cartridge. I love the black. It took some tweaking to set up, but on some music there seems to be a whole in my sound. I get a too chirpy guitar, or just. Lack of weight in the mids or mid-high. But that doesn’t jive with the chirpy parts. My plan is to try the blue on the black cart and see if that combo puts me somewhere in between. Next I may try a Loki schiit as it’s discreet. I’d rather keep eq out of it though. If nothing else the experiment might help my narrow the problem. I may have to upgrade some speakers or sub. I guess I’m wondering if that descriptor on my sound might be familiar and point you to a hint you can give me. Also you are running 1.8 on the black? That seems high

@@kylejernigan6409 Hi Kyle, I hope you are well :). I fitted an Ortofon Red to my deck after its rebuild because it was the only cartridge that looked cool enough to grace the end of the arm, to stick a lump of ugly rectangular plastic on the end was not an option, I checked that compliance would not be a problem and bingo, Ortofon saved the day. I hope this feedback helps you. I have compared the 2M Black to the ultra low mileage AT-OC7 I use on my Alphason Sonata on both turntables and would honestly find it difficult to fault either of them, at least with my ears. The 2M Black gives nothing away to the MC right across the spectrum when used on the Alphason in the HRS100MCS arm, maybe the AT is just a tidge better at the extreme top end, but maybe the Ortofon just eases it in the deep bass department, or it could be my ears. In the SME arm on the Transcriptors the 2M black has a clear advantage over the MC which doesn't track as well in the SME3009. In addition to the Transcriptors/SME/2M Black, M1 VINL phono amp I have an Audiolab 8200 CD/DAC driving an Audiolab 8000Q pre amp and two 8000M monoblocks, they drive TDL Studio 1's in my man cave and Tannoy DC3000's in my main room, a system built to maximise the sound from the CD player on paper. Basically a system good enough to let me hear what the front end is doing. If I compare my favourite album of all time, Hawkwind's 'A Space Ritual' using both mediums the Ortofon lacks nothing, even the 2M Red severely embarrassed the old compact duck. You could try the 1.8g tracking weight to see if that helps your problem, after 45 years of experimenting with, 'cartri' ;), I have come to the same conclusion as have many others, the recommended tracking weights are the work of marketing men as much as engineers. Perhaps it is because my SME is a knife edge bearing design but the cartridge definitely sounds more powerful and focused at that weight. One other interesting thing I have found. If I mess with the input capacitance on the phono amp the differences in presentation are ultra subtle, if i change the cable capacitance, between the arm and phono amp the difference for a similar capacitance change can be dramatic, you could try to obtain a cable of a capacitance that will help to match you input to the cartridges needs as closely as possible? I hope that is of some use to you. What turntable arm are you using it in if I might ask? All the best Sean

obviously you wanted more than what the Exact offers. Is it a matter of you're hard to satisfy or is it not that good? Besides it being yellow.

I don't think the difference in sound would be that greater difference, the blue cart is quite tall so a VTA adjustment will be required, the audio technica cartridges have always punched above their weight, great sound for minimal outlay. The 95e is a good cart, I would keep your cart and buy a 95 EN this would fit the existing body and you would get better sound whilst saving yourself some money, bear in mind some carts / stylus needs time to break in .

@@peterstudley1804 I ended up getting this Audio-Technica AT-VMN95SH and wow, MAJOR difference from the AT-VM95E. Night and day. I played old rock, rap, death metal and that stylus embarrasses the AT-VM95E. I am super satisfied with my turntable now. I am recording so many songs into my PC using Audacity and saving them as FLAC files.

I had the Bronze and purchased the VM740ML and i also think its the better sounding cartridge, investing in a nice phono preamp helps in sound quality too

@@garysvinyldungeon2764 Yep! Not sure what your budget would be, but I'd recommend the iPhono3 for 999 dollars.

Yeah I need to know this too!!

Ortofon says both are balanced to eachother, and i tend to agree. If you swap the needle you’ll only replace the part that rides the groove. The part that turns the movement into electricity sits in the base.

The red/blue combo is one cart-the bronze/black is another.You'll get told by some they have the same body-they do not. The bronze/black has better materials in the body,more coils and the coils are silver coated. The 2m silver is effectively a blue stylus with a red/blue cart body-with the same number of coils but they are silver coated. You should also pair the bronze/black with an appropriate preamp-a basic doesn't cut it.Get a Manni Shiit,Project tube amp or as I did a Graham Slee Communicator 2 se. Using improved tt cables is advised too as is proper setup.

They all have differently cut stylus. Red has a bonded stylus.

@@jerryjohnson4625 I went fro the Red to the Blue on my Project Carbon distinct improvement sound stage much better it has more depth .Would love a Bronze but can't afford a divorce .

You should be good with your Onkyo. Some receivers have the option to bypass the preamp so make sure you are not doing that. After that, enjoy!

@@21cstinch Awesome. Thank you for the response.

You either need an Integrated amp or a pre amp and power amp separate. Most good turntables don't have built in pre amps. The AT lp120 is great, except the shitty preamp that not actually possible to fully by pass with out disconnecting it. Most TT that I'm aware of that have built in pre amp are crap. The lp120 being an exception. There might be more decent TT's with built in that I don't know about.

Great turntable. It's made in China, but it has really good quality. For a belt-driven turntable in its price range, it also offers way better W&F than its competitors like Pro-Ject.

the Ortofon 2M Red. A better sound than the Shure m97xe... I own both

Nagaoka MP-110. The giant slayer.

Tony C I got that. But what would had happened if he put a bronze needle on a red "house". How much sound improvement would he get? Would he get any? And what about a red needle on a bronze "house"? How would that sound. I am just curious about how things work, and I would like to see a video about that.

@@Bny692 The stylus and cartridge are a bit of a package deal. However, the Blue and Red share the same cartridge. You can buy the 2M Red and then upgrade to the Blue by just replacing the stylus. You could then buy a Bronze stylus and put it on that same cartridge, but it would not perform nearly as well as it would if you bought it with the cartridge that it belongs with. Also, the Bronze and Black share the same cartridge, so once you have the Bronze, you can upgrade with a Black stylus.

@@musictrivianut Thankyou a lot :-)

1.8 grams

It certainly will. Just remove your head shell from the tonearm on the Technics and switch up the cartridges. Just make sure that when you install the 2M Red that the wires are hooked up correctly. Then you'll need to reset the Technics to accommodate the 2M Red - so adjust the counterweight (I believe the 2M Red should track at around 1.8 grams), then adjust your anti skate, and should be good to go.

@@zephyr332 okay! Thank you.

Although this is true the cartridge design is slightly different between that which houses the blue and red and that which houses the bronze and black. You may notice even more of an improvement upgrading the cartridge as well.

@@mikecole4924 yes if I had the black cartridge also it probably would have sounded quite a bit better.

The generators are different between Red/Blue and Bronze/Black. So your swap works, but it doesn't make use of the full potential.

@@svenschwingel8632I have an Ortofon gray cartridge paired with a bronze stylus, and it sounds really good. Guess it might not be quite the full potential tho, as you say.

The red and blue stylus can distort more on the higher end cartridge body so beware!

So you like a weedy sound with pronounced upper treble / Tilted frequency response. If so something is wrong with your system. Bin that At cartridge, it's shite.

@@fuckinellitsraymo Do some research. The 440MLB represents far more value than the bronze which is overpriced. It is not weedy and has a relatively flat frequency response. Gajo if you like the AT house sound I recommend moving up their MM line. They will out compete Ortofon over and over again. Having said that you may need to improve your vinyl quality if the surface noise is distracting you with the bronze. Any decent stylus shape will bring out more of this noise. Maybe look at a record cleaning system? Spinclean represents great value. You will be surprised how good it can get your old dusty and dirty records.

@@fuckinellitsraymo You're a dumb ass. I'd like to hear your boring ass, shitty sounding cartridge.

@@fuckinellitsraymo I have a VM-95ML and it's frequency response is as balanced as can be up to a point where some even call it "boring" for not having a boomy bass and treble boost. A great cartridge for the money. If you find a cartridge to be sounding harsh or overpronounced in the treble, the culprit is most likely a mismatch in cable and input stage capacitance. Because generator coils with their inductance, tonearm cable, rca cable and input terminal with capacitances create an LC circuit which can greatly influence frequency response. Which is why any decent phono preamp has a capacitance switch for MM and a load switch for MC cartridges. Running an RCA connection with as little pF/m as possible is a good first step in taming a lot of AT cartridges.

@@svenschwingel8632 A flat frequency response doesn't tell you how it sounds, your ears do. I'm now running a Van Den Hull "the frog" a year on since this post started so I think I'll leave the comments to you guys.

I hope you did the mod on that LP120 that bypasses the internal phono preamp. Because there is a lowpass filter in the signal path that cannot be turned off even with a deactivated internal preamp.

@@svenschwingel8632 this is very true. I own an LP120 and noticed the sound issue right away. I ended up buying a very good used Technics SL-1200 MKIII and a nice little preamp and am very happy with it. The preamp that's installed in the LP 120 is flawed, unfortunately. You'd need to take apart the turntable to remove it, or soulder the little connectors on the board, which is a huge pain in the ass. Its good that you were able to do that. I was afraid to even try the mod, myself.

@@MJEvermore853 the lowpass in the LP120 (not the newer X mind you) is just a parallel capacitor in the signal path that is shunted into ground after the phono stage (so it's active even when using an external preamp), essentially a 6dB/octave filter that starts around 10 kHz and dampens the treble significantly. If you use an older or entry-level AT cartridge and a high-enough input capacitance on your preamp, you won't actually notice it because these cartridges always had a treble boost. All you really need to do is to cut the connection between said capacitor and ground. And if you are interested in best-possible playback quality, you should use an external phono preamp anyway, either in your amp or as a separate component. I use a Pro-Ject Phono Box S2 which can be configured to lots of different input capacitances or impedances (for MC) and cost me around 150 bucks - it sounds great with almost any cartridge 😬

@@svenschwingel8632 interesting info. Thanks Sven 👍

@@MJEvermore853 I have the AT-LP120XUSB-BK model. It has a lot of bass with the AT-VM95E needle, just the highs and mids are a little weird. I'm thinking of getting this Blue setup for this turntable. On my model though, is there a low pass filter in this thing too? I have the player hooked up to my PC via USB btw and sometimes use the line out option to an audio mixer, I never used the phono option yet.

yip

A laymen's reply...from what I've read, red to blue is no problem, but any other combo isn't recommended by Ortofon due to the technology in the cartridge & how it corresponds w/ the styli it was designed for.

Red and Blue are interchangeable because they run the same generator. Bronze shares an upgraded generator with Black.

Bronze will always make a difference but then there's the next level of black which is just not in my budget. If you can upgrade and still be comfortable, do it, you'll definitely hear it and enjoy the results. But sticking to blue is perfectly fine as well.

Thanks do you have any experience with Nagaoka mp200 or AT VM750SH cartidges? I've been eyeballing them.

I send you some affordable carts if you'll send me some affordable healthcare.

There is one factor you did not consider: MicroLine stylii like the Bronze last up to three times longer than elliptical stylii like Red or Blue (Audio Technica states that ML can go for 1000 hours, compared to 300-500 for an elliptical). So the investment pays itself off in the end.

That's regressing

J Wunder I did the same, then this week I tried an Ortofon 2M red and it was an unbelievable change

AT carts are known to be .. you know ... not that good ... Ortofons are better, but not great .... if you want a great and affordable cart ... Nagaoka MP110.

@@michelrichert9052 What the f... are you on about? Have you tried them all in a decent set up?

@@michelrichert9052 This is completely wrong. AT carts are known to be phenomenal and show amazing value all the way up the price range. They are also known to track much better than ortofons and provide better quality stylus types at cheaper prices that Nagaoka. The Nag MP200 is a great sounding cartridge, I would not bother with the MP110. Anything higher and I would move away from Nag unless you can spring for the MP500 where you get some higher quality diamond shapes that will improve tracking, reduce distortion and improve sound stage.

@UCvIQcTPLPsI9eN3oCDrpH5w I think you will find that with adequate loading and appropriate capacitance the AT will completely change. Many people mismatch phono stage and cartridge. This has always been a problem with AT carts. Their new releases have done a little towards reducing this issue, but a good stage should provide the necessary settings to dial it in. Ortofons suffer these issues as well as can be evidenced by the many posts about people not liking the harsh highs and surface noise issues of the 2M black. I completely disagree about their MM cartridges sounding poor. The AT150MLX was a superb cartridge and now unfortunately discontinued. Boron cantilever, advanced stylus profile and excellent stereo separation and distortion levels. Again most people do not hear what an AT is capable of as they do not investigate their setup. MM need to be carefully matched to get the most out of them.

no you are not, a torque head in a hex head screw,,,, OOPS

There was a written note at that point in the video mentioning he made a mistake. Torx...

Some people can’t afford expensive record players so to tell someone they should be embarrassed is embarrassing for you and you should feel ashamed. Disgusting.

Bit of a basic statement that

It's not quite that simple. An Ortofon Bronze and certainly a Black will give more detail than a Nagaoka MP-110. Yet many people might prefer the sound of the Nag mp-110 anyway over all of the Ortofon moving magnet carts.

@@ericjensen9091 Shame because Nagaoka carts are boring.

@@bkkersey93 Perhaps you're listening with your eyes as opposed to your ears.

I started with the 2Mred. Wow. It sounded so nice. Pro-ject Debut table . Then I sprung for the 2M Bronze. Let the bells ring ! Detail and more detail. The Red run about $99.00 -the 2M Bronze, I paid about $450.00 It's not leaving me feel empty with all the music I didn't really hear before. New stylus every year?

@@jerryjohnson4625 Depends on how well you look after your records.And how clean your stylus I'd say check after 12 months with a pocket microscope/amateur microscope.I think 15 mths solid play will start to degrade a fineline. Don't forget to try a blue stylus on the bronze cart-it may just suprise you!Despite popular claims;the cart bodies/engines are different.

Ken Belmont we love trump down here

@@1317rudy No. We don't.

Depends where you live if you can afford it, as well in a single buy.. for me it’s not worth the price jump... for Me the bronze is 340usd while the black is around 690usd...

Why does the black last 3 times longer than the bronze? What is your source on this?

@@mikecole4924 Needle is made from graphite

@Michael Cole Not all needles are diamond some are ceramic, sapphire, even rubber.

@@thesleepstate do you mean cantilevers? Old styli were made from ceramic. Modern styli are diamond. Cantilevers are constructed from all sorts of materials including Ruby and sapphire along with Boron.

...and it's spelled octagon.

@@krisolin yeah I know Google can't spell

Agree, blue is much better. Bronze is very cold, harsh sounding, even worse than badly mastered CDs. I dont know how any1 thinks Bronze is better. If you pay me $400, i would not take this Bronze.

@@thenow5559 Agree, I had a Bronze and was so pissed off with it I threw it off a cliff! The blue is 2nd to the Black. Once you go black..

@@thesleepstate Why did you not jump on it,grind it to dust on a lathe and THEN toss the remains off the cliff?Whilst you are at it-try using a laquered camel's pubic hair as a stylus-would kick the nads off anything Soundsmith could make!Just sayin'

I agree bronze is fake sound. Harsh, cold. I was very disappointed. Blue is much better. Even red.

@@mfmantica maybe your system is just not suited to the bronze? Having said that, a lot of people like bright sounding cartridges and talk about "more detail" as here.

I've owned an MP110 for over a year, just recently upgraded to the MP200.. Nagaoka makes GREAT carts

I would disagree that the bronze is trounced by the MP110.... Having said that the MP200 is likely to demolish it, if you like the Nag sound. I suspect the MP500 would destroy the MM Black as well.

Yes I agree. I had thr red, blue and bronze. Then switched to Nagaoka MP-150. Nagaoka destroys the Bronze. And for only $270.

You're so full of shit its unbelievable. That Nagaoka cartridge sucks ass. It couldn't track the inner grooves to save its behind.

@@bkkersey93 Must be your turntable and arm.

Any cartridge will degrade your LPs, at least your use other kind of technology.

What I meant was that the 2M cartridges struggle to track vinyl with high output. Unless they are in a warm environment. In cool conditions they struggle. The 2M Bronze is the worst offender. Despite meticulous alignment and azimuth they struggle with some lps in cooler conditions on all decks ive tried.