Ortofon Cadenza Black Moving Coil Cartridge

Full Description

The Cadenza Black is the flagship of the popular Cadenza range of Moving Coil cartridges. It employs a pristine-cut Nude Shibata stylus with a boron cantilever. The effective mass of the stylus/cantilever system is extremely low due to the use of a very thin boron rod; this material is extremely stiff and even more lightweight than aluminium, making it a real premium component choice.

The Black model also uses the WRD (Wide Range Damping-system), controlling the high and low frequency damping separately. The coil wire is the famous Ortofon Aucurum wire, which is a gold plated version of the popular 6NX copper wire.

Cadenza Black is optimized for an amazing tonal neutrality, dynamics and purity of sound. It is high performing on areas like detail, consistency and sound staging.

WRD System

The Wide Range Damping (WRD) System is an impressive component devised previously only for the special edition cartridge models - such as MCA 90 or MC Windfeld. The way it works is that a small, heavy disc of exotic metal is clamped between two rubber absorbers with different properties. This makes sure that the tracking performance is maintained simultaneously with the perfect damping in the whole frequency range, with the effect that distortion and resonance are avoided.

The WRD system, which was originally introduced in the MC 20 Mk II in 1979 and was also used in the MC Jubilee and many of Ortofon’s other top-class cartridges, is one contributory reason why the Cadenza Black can cover such a wide frequency range, and achieve an impressive 90µm tracking ability at the recommended tracking force.

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