Ortofon Super OM 10 Moving Magnet Cartridge

I did a ton of research before settling on this one. I was looking to upgrade from an AT-3600l, which came standard with my turntable. I considered the Ortofon 2m Red, but upon reading the reviews, I felt that the 2m Red was going to be a bit too sensitive for some of my old beat up albums. I didn't want super accentuation of all the scuffs and dings they have received over the years. It was then when I found out about the Super OM10. I decided to go with the latter and save myself the $20.The cartridge was packaged in a genuine Ortofon box with the reflective tamper resistant stickers and it came with the nuts and bolts. It took me about 20 minutes lining up the new cartridge just right and using a protractor and bubble level to ensure that the tonearm was completely parallel and balanced. Then, it was onto tweaking the tracking force. I set it at 1.5g, the recommended setting from Ortofon.Once everything was adjusted correctly, it was time to take it for a spin.Without exaggerating, I can honestly say it was a transcending experience. The sound is so much more open and pronounced, the voices are so much more clear, and the instruments play so much more isolated as they should. The tones of the voices are so much more richer and natural rather than synthetic. For reference, I compared my modern system's sound to the sound of an old school Technics stereo system with multiple components and it was really close. I can go on and on about this cartridge and all the beautiful sounds it's brought into my life, but I will end it here by stating I am absolutely ecstatic about my purchase and am definitely a new Ortofon devotee.

Firstly, to clarify something, this cartridge is NOT discontinued. Per a recent conversation with someone at Ortofon, they stopped selling the Super OM20 and the Super OM30. However, they will continue to manufacture the Super OM10 and the 20 and 30 styli for the foreseeable future. These will continue to be readily available, no need to stockpile.Now, as for the cartridge itself, it's great. Like many people, I upgraded from the OM5E and noticed a major improvement across the board, from the air, warmth, clarity, separation, any audiophile buzzword you can think of. The OM range delivers consistent improvement in each of its styli options. I am actually running the Stylus 20 right now and would again note a massive improvement over the 10.One thing to note which isn't talked about as much is the improvement of the Super cartridge over the standard OM cartridge. I first went from the OM5E to the Stylus 20, but utilizing the normal body. I then put the Stylus 20 onto the Super OM body and immediately noticed an increased presence and definition of higher frequencies, as well as better separation across the entire spectrum. If I had to pick a word to describe the upgrade from Standard to Super, it's that it's livelier. It's been well noted how natural of a reproduction you get from the OM series, and the Super cartridge body accentuates that in a noticeable way.Get this for the Super OM cartridge body and know that you'll have the latitude to upgrade your stylus to match any system that a reasonable person could want.

Awesome sound out of this cartridge. I am using it with a Music Hall MMF Mark 1 and the Mark 1 came with the Ortofon OM 5e stock. I was impressed with the difference you could hear in the sound quality. A lot of people were telling me to just exchange the stylus from the 5e to the 10, but I changed the cartridges out anyway. Totally worth the upgrade.

I was worried after finishing the alignment, tonearm balancing and tracking force adjustment because there was a lot of sibilance and distortion. I was listening to Rubenstein play Chopin (quiet, classical piano) so the music was very "pure". The worrisome sounds decreased on the second side and by the next album (Elvin Jones, Dear John C. - jazz), the bass was what I expected and the high frequencies warmed up. I won't put Led Zeppelin on for a few more sides. If you've dialed it in correctly, give it a couple albums to break in, maybe starting with "gentler" music.Now, it sounds nice - warm and precise. Mr. Jones' brushwork and delicate cymbal taps have an energy I haven't noticed for a while. I'm hearing ghost notes in his drumming I hadn't noticed before. Similarly, I hear the the finger plucking of Richard Davis' upright bass more than before.

I have Pioneer's low mass tonearm DD turntable PL-750 and I was considering Audio Technica's new VM95 cart or renowned Nagaoka MP110 and stumbled upon the calculation of resonance frequency at the cartridge for given cartridge's compliance and the total effective mass. As I study more, I can see the benefit of tuning this frequency in the range of 7-12 Hz as many recommends. In the old days of 1980's when Shure and other makers create MM cartridges with 'high compliance' which means low spring rate, it was beneficial for the turntable makers to make super low mass tonearms. Mine turns out to offer around 6g including the head shell (with it's carbon composite structure and mass saving design) and would result in 16 Hz with Nagaoka's MP110 which cause tracking issue or distortion at a low frequency in the music matching that number. Most of Audio Technica's cart is heavy (6~7g) and offers low compliance which matches perfectly to its own AT-LP120 model and others that offer medium mass tonearms. Both of my turntables (Pioneer PL-750 and Project) offers light weight tonearms that would result in higher than 13 Hz with AT or Nagaoka's models. Ortofon's OM series was designed to fit this needs perfectly. The cartridge comes in as 5g but you can take out 2.5g weight. With compliance number 25, I get 9 Hz for the resonance frequency with OM10 for my turntable.Probably analogue is picking up the popularity because of this delicate nature and people find their preference satisfied in a unique way. I am finding OM10 not as delicate and silky smooth as my good old Shure M95ED but it got more structure and depth and some how make listening experience more enjoyable. At $80, I'd call it a steal.

Saludos, compré el fonocaptor Ortofon Super OM10 para sustituir el fonocaptor Ortofon Omega en mi tornamesa Sony PS-T22, el desempeño obtenido fúe notable, los tonos agudos son mas precisos , en el fonocaptor Ortofon Omega los agudos están algo atenuados , con el modelo Super OM10 la distorsión es inaudible, la música se escucha clara , además trabaja con solo 1.5 gramos de peso lo cual tiene como beneficio un menor desgaste de los discos, en cuanto a la compatibilidad con el brazo de baja masa de duraluminio de la tornamesa Sony PS-T22 la serie OM se adapta muy bien, en resumen el desempeño es bastante bueno para el precio del fonocaptor.

SuperOM10 is a worthy upgrade from my OM5E. Really good bang for buck upgrade that's night and day difference in sonic quality. Very easy to hear the deeper bass and mids now... I found OM5E totally lacked mid and bass and music felt a bit empty. With this upgrade it has transformed my turntable.The jump from om5E to more expensive om20/30/40's wasn't worth it for me since I don't have an ultra high end turn table. The bang for buck with diminishing returns didn't make sense for me at this time.Anyone wanting to get major sonic upgrade for budget system ought to try this out.

Ho sempre considerato Ortofon una testina con qualità più alta rispetto al prezzo; premetto che ho sempre preferito il vinile anche se negli ultimi 20 anni e passa ho acquistato quasi sempre Cd. Ora ho ripreso in mano i 33 giri, esclusivamente musica classica, e ho comprato una Om10 per leggerli. Qualità molto elevata, tracciabilità eccezionale anche con brani molto difficili, medi e acuti cristallini ma senza stancare minimamente segno di distorsione estremamente bassa; la testina forse è un po' carente sui bassi profondi ma in un disco di organo inciso direttamente su vinile (una rarità) ho riscontrato una presenza sui bassi notevole e precisa....anche in questo caso la tracciabilità è stata perfetta, non si è minimamente scomposta. In definitiva una testina forse per puristi ad un costo però decisamente basso per i risultati che si ottengono. Negli anni passati ho avuto anche Shure, AudioTechnica, Grado etc....ma Ortofon rimane la mia preferita. Adesso sto passando i miei vinili su chiavetta in Flac eliminando tutti i click e i disturbi con un programma ad hoc; se ne avvantaggia la musicalità e la rotondità del suono. Lavoro colossale ma che mi dà molta soddisfazione. Consegna Amazon precisa e pacco arrivato in condizioni perfette. Grazie

Ideal for low mass tonearm with effective mass of 10g. If your turntable came with the OM-5e, the higher compliance Super cartridge and the OM-10 stylus tip is an affordable immediate upgrade. Lowers the recommended tracking force from 1.75g to 1.5g too if that matters to you.

Lovely clear, clean sound on my stereo (sorry, "vinyl deck"). As far as I am aware, Ortofon don't make the "Super" cartridge body any more. I think that even if you buy one of their top level stylii you get the same standard body, whereas the "Super" has different internals. Details are out there on the internet, and includes slotted coil formers or some such arcane engineering differences between the Super and the ordinary cartridge body. Not sure what effect they have, but I imagine Ortofon must have found the Super too difficult or expensive to make. Sounds great, which is the most important thing after all.