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Installation of the MC-3000 was reasonably simple, the only caveat being that one should use the special nonmagnetic screwdriver supplied with the cartridge. Like the 2000, the 3000 has a strong magnetic field surrounding the base of the fragile cantilever, which attracts all ferrous objects with truly impressive intensity. And don't just play it safe with the screwdriver and then trash the cartridge with your tracking-force gauge. The suspension member on many of these (including the popular Shure Bros. one) have enough ferrous content to attract the cartridge, too. If you aren't sure your…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Low-output, moving-coil phono cartidge. Output voltage: 100µV (1kHz, 5 cm/s). Channel separation: 25dB at 1kHz, 15dB at 15kHz. Channel balance: within 1dB at 1kHz. Frequency range: 5Hz–90kHz. Frequency response: 5Hz–50kHz, +4, -1dB. Tracking ability: Better than 80µm at 315Hz. Lateral and vertical dynamic compliance: 18. Recommended tracking force: 2.2gm. Force range: 2–2.5gm. Tip radii: 5x100µm. Equivalent tip mass: 0.25mg. Cartridge weight: 9.5gm.
Price: $1500 (1988), no longer available (2006). T-3000 step-up transformer: $1250 (1988), no…
Sidebar 2: System Details
Equipment used for my tests included a SOTA Sapphire turntable fitted with the SME Series V tonearm and the Well-Tempered Arm (the Versa Dynamics is temporarily down; see "Follow-up" in this issue), a Stax Quattro CD player, a Revox A-77 15ips open-reel tape deck, the Threshold FET-10 line preamplifier, Threshold SA-1 power amplifiers, and Sound Lab A-3 full-range electrostatic speakers. Audio interconnects were Monster 1000s, speaker cables were Straight Wire Ribbons. The listening room is extensively damped with ASC Tube Traps. Program material was some of my…
Alvin Gold wrote about the Ortofon MC-3000 in October 1988 (Vol.11 No.10):
Audio Technica isn't the only large cartridge maker in the business of showing the audiophile elite how it should be done. Ortofon has done something similar with its MC-3000. This $1000 cartridge, JGH's reference since its introduction last year, comes dangerously close to breaking my own self-imposed rule for this piece—equipment should be relatively affordable. In fact, I'll go further and suggest that Ortofon's costs being what they must be, I think it is pitched over the odds in the UK, though I'll never be…
J. Gordon Holt returned to the MC-3000 in November 1988 (Vol.11 No.11):
This latest top-of-the-line cartridge from Ortofon received a generally enthusiastic review in Vol.11 No.1, but was criticized because of its reduced compliance (relative to its MC-2000 predecessor), which led to a thickening of the midbass and occasional LF mistracking when used in a low-mass arm like the Well-Tempered, and also because of questions about its absolute accuracy.
Then I tried the MC-3000 in the incredible Versa Dynamics arm/turntable, and did an about-face. Like all straight-line trackers, the…
The SC-I ($995/pair) is the smallest model in the "Signature Collection" to come from Dunlavy Audio Labs, the company founded by John Dunlavy after he left Duntech. The largest model in this series used to be the $4995/pair SC-IV that Robert Deutsch so enthusiastically reviewed last April, and that this month was voted Stereophile's 1994 "Product of the Year." There is now also a huge SC-VI available.
Whether small or large, however, all the Dunlavy SC series conform to designer John Dunlavy's basic specification: a vertically symmetrical array of drive-units above and below a central…
Part of the reason for the excellent soundstaging must be the very close pair-matching—when I was measuring the in-room balance at the listening seat (see below), the upper midrange and treble responses of each speaker were effectively identical. Such outstanding imaging is also dependent on a speaker's transparency and resolution of detail: here, too, the SC-I excelled.
While I was using the Dunlavys, I was experimenting with the Meridian remastering converter to determine the optimal treatment for our Concert recording. This takes in high-resolution digital data and redithers/noise-…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, stand-mounted, sealed-box loudspeaker with a low-frequency Q of approximately 0.6. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) silk-dome tweeter; two 5.5" (140mm) plastic-cone woofers. Measured crossover frequency: 3.5kHz. Electrical crossover slopes: first-order, 6dB/octave, minimum-phase, compensated for driver response anomalies. Frequency response at 10' on HF axis: 80Hz–20kHz ±2dB. Phase response at 10' on HF axis: 200Hz–10kHz ±20° (pulse response said to be "better than most CD players"). Harmonic distortion: <0.5% at 90dB spl above 250Hz. Pair…
Sidebar 2: Review context
Power amplifiers used to drive these speakers were either a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.6 monoblocks, a Krell KSA-100S, or a Krell KSA-50S; the preamplifier was the remote-controlled Mark Levinson No.38S, or the value-for-money McCormack TLC-1 buffered passive control unit. A Mod Squad Phono Drive EPS amplified LP signals from a Linn Sondek/Cirkus/Trampolin/Lingo/Ekos/Arkiv setup sitting on an ArchiDee table. Digital source was a Mark Levinson No.30 or a Counterpoint DA-10, each driven by a Mark Levinson No.31 transport via Madrigal AES/EBU cable. An Audio…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The SC-I is very sensitive for a relatively small speaker, its calculated B-weighted sensitivity being around 90dB/2.83V/m. However, though it will therefore play loud with low-powered amplifiers, it is a fairly demanding load, as can be seen from its plot of impedance magnitude and phase against frequency (fig.1). Though the electrical phase angle is small above the bass-enclosure resonance, the magnitude is lowish, remaining below 6 ohms over most of the audioband and dropping to a minimum value of 3.25 ohms at 260Hz. The uniformity of the curve, however,…