Ortofon MC X50

@pindac since you’ve discussed the X50 in depth with your friend, is there any reason you can’t share some of your friends thoughts on the comparison with the X40?

Saying its a replacement for the Quintet user is surely damning with faint praise. Every review I’ve seen of the X40 places it in a higher echelon than the best of the Quintets. That seems to be well established.

While I don’t have experience with the Quintets, my own assessment of the X40, having owned a range of Ortofons higher priced offerings (per above), is that it is actually more than competitive with the older higher price tiers. So I’m wondering how much better the X50 could be?

There are two friends referred to in this thread as follows:

1, A Friend who has a history of attending the High End Audio Show. Who also is familiarised with Ortofon Cart's produced from the 2000 era through to 2010-ish, i.e, PW Windfeld. The individual is very familiar with the Kontrapunkts and variants of these, as he has been loaned a Kb' from me, knows my own redesign/rebuild very well and has been an attendee where a selection of Ortofons in original build and variants of an original have been side-by-side demoed. 

This friend was the individual at the HEAS and has notified another friend and I about the Ortofon X Models, they specifically referenced the TT in use, as they are and also know that there is familiarity with this TT in use and closely performing TT's from a Vintage era on place for my friend and I.

Their contact made on the subject is below:

" just returned from a trip to Vienna to visit the High End show, it's a big show but we managed to drop into the Ortofon room where the gentleman, who I assume is their chief engineer, was telling us about their new MC X50 cartridge. I thought as long term Ortofon users, you might be interested in what we heard.

I think the MC X50 is the first Ortofon to use a micro ridge cartridge. It also has a brand new formulation rubber damper.

The engineer was a really interesting gentleman with an obvious passion for his job. He mentioned that he had just completed 4 major research projects and had approved another 32 development projects with the hope of improving their cartridges.

In particular he seemed very excited about the X50 suggesting that he had been really surprised how much more information the new stylus had extracted from the grooves and that they had possibly lucked out into getting a much higher performance over the MC X40 than they had expected from the new stylus geometry and damper.

They were running a SP10R turntable and had both X40 and X50 cartridges mounted in head shells so was able to swap in seconds. He then played just 20 seconds of the X40, 20 of the X50 and then back for another 20 of the X40.

The X40 was very impressive and made a good impression but the X50 added significantly greater detail along with quite a bit of magic to the sound. The X50 retails for €1500 as opposed to the X40 €1000 and I think anyone listening to the comparison would find the extra funds for the more expensive cartridge without a moments thought.

He said that the top Ortofon models were better than the X50 but had a little look in his eye that suggested the X50 was much closer than they had expected. 

I know we have discussed that some Ortofon models in their history have been special and I wonder if the X50 might fit into this category.

I don't know if you have any Ortofon dealers locally but if you have I'd see if you can get a listen, maybe against your existing cartridge if possible.

Kind regards

2, Another Friend, a retired Electronics Engineer and Machinist trained to a standard of being a Tool and Die producer through manual application during a career.  During their career, they were also leads of design teams on very advanced technologies used on projects.

This same individual has had a deep passion for Analogue reaching back 50-ish years, and their career training has added to their passion for using an Analogue Source. They have become one of the UK's leaders on certain vintage Japanese DD TT's, especially on redesigns for electronics, speed control improvement and main platter bearing mechanical interface improvement. 

Additionally, they have their own design for a Tonearm and have also been the sole designer of Phonostages and Amplification, which have gone on to be produced by other parties as commercially available products. These products have become ones that are exhibited at commercial audio events. At a very recent audio event, where accolades are awarded by visitors, these products were receiving 'Best Sound' awards from attendees to the exhibition room. 

Others around the globe have consulted with this friend and, as a result, created exchanges had, are instrumental in assisting their own reputations in developing to be of a similar status. 

Since COVID times, this same person has invasively investigated Ortofon Cart's produced from the 2000 era through to Ortofon Cart's currently in production. When this individual is encouraged into a dialogue and thoughts are shared between parties, where my friend states the Quintet has a successor and not the upper in the range models, I take that on board.

From a different perspective on the subject, maybe the info shared at the HEAS that: "He mentioned that he had just completed 4 major research projects and had approved another 32 development projects with the hope of improving their cartridges. " Is a really big clue for the market to see other new models.

@pindac thanks for the additional information. 

I'm very happy with the performance of the X40 in my system and would choose it over the no longer available Jubilee (also silver coils/boron cantilever/Shibata stylus) or, I think, the Cadenza Black. Certainly it is a fantastic value.

The X50 indeed seems worthy of consideration when it becomes available here in Australia, but as yet I have not seen any retailers advertising it. Not sure if any retailers near me would have examples for auditioning, so I'll probably have to roll the dice when the time comes. However I know already it will be excellent based on the X40's accomplishment, so the risk is not great I suppose. 

I suspect Ortofon will roll out a new 'Cadenza' replacement series sooner rather than later.

The use of the Micro Ridge Stylus also has the difficult to avoid attachment of it to the 'X' range, which suggests these are the models that are designed to generate a large sales turnover.

The MR is found across a range of models from competitors on their MC's.

Ortofon does not have a history with the MR as an outsourced part. 

Pindac, Can you explain further your last comment?  I assume Ortofon buys the cantilever and MR stylus as conjoined parts, from one of the few suppliers of same.