The Ortofon Exclusives Series of our highest performing Moving Coil cartridges has now been expanded to include a new premier model – the MC Verismo. “The Ortofon Exclusives series cartridges are widely acknowledged as being some of the best Moving Coil cartridges on the market, and we are continuously working on expanding the Exclusives range to offer music lovers even more opportunities to experience the supreme quality, precision, impact and dynamics that a highend reference cartridge conveys.”
The MC Verismo has been developed based on our extensive knowledge of vibration properties, different shapes and materials characteristics, as well as competences in magnetism, mechanical design and technologies. This new state-of-the-art product, representative of numerous Ortofon design ideals, is truly exemplary of the highest degree of performance possible in contemporary analogue playback technology. The MC Verismo will undoubtedly provide sound which simply has to be experienced.
The story behind the name
The name Verismo is derived from the Italian “vero”, meaning “true” and is the Italian for “realism”. Versimo was a post-Romantic operatic genre, that had its origins in an Italian literary movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Verismo’s operatic tradition is associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Francesco Cilea and Giacomo Puccini, who sought to portray the world with greater realism.
At Ortofon, our ultimate purpose is to continually raise the bar for true, faithful and accurate reproduction of the recorded sound. It is to provide the ultimate musical experience through a mixture of innovation and technical expertise, creating unique value for all listeners by allowing them to reveal music’s true inner emotions.
Design elements and high-end materials
The housing of the Verismo cartridge is made in Titanium with the Selective Laser Melting (SLM) technique pioneered by Ortofon. This technique allows for precise control of the density of the body material, allowing for extremely high internal damping.
The MC Verismo makes use of Ortofon’s Replicant 100 diamond. This Line Contact type stylus distinguishes itself by having a narrow and long contact surface, which is as close as possible to the original cutting stylus. This ensures the most accurate reproduction, lowest distortion and extended frequency range.
The addition of a solid Diamond cantilever provides the best possible interface between the stylus and armature, owing to its hardness and crystal structure. The improvements found in the use of a Diamond cantilever have redefined the boundaries of analogue reproduction, presenting greater inner detail, subtlety, and depth like never before.
Higher efficiency magnet system
The magnet system is based on an extremely strong, compact neodymium magnet, which makes the generator system both compact and lighter through its minimal dimensions.
Much like its predecessors, the MC A95 and the MC Windfeld Ti, the MC Verismo employs the special designed armature comprised of a metal alloy which is less magnetic than normal iron. This provides noteworthy benefit to the dynamic capabilities of the cartridge. The reason for this is that our high-tech armature has almost no influence on the magnetic field during movement. Moreover, it allows to achieve extreme precision in each coil turn in all layers. This enables the MC Verismo to obtain a higher degree of channel separation, while simultaneously offering lower distortion and better channel balance.
Using Oroton’s Aucurum coils of gold-plated, 6NX oxygen free copper allows for zero-loss transmission of the diamond’s movements via its Diamond cantilever. This combination makes use of low moving mass and an extremely high degree of rigidity.
Enhenced damping capabilities
Ortofon’s Field Stabilizing Element (FSE), a small cylinder of conductive material strategically placed inside the magnet system, guarantees that the magnetic field remains stable regardless of the movement of the armature. FSE improves the channel separation, while at the same time minimizing dynamic distortion and intermodulation.
One of the important components is Ortofon’s patented Wide Range Damping system (WRD), in which a small, heavy platinum disc is sandwiched between two rubber absorbers, both with different properties. This ensures not only an exceptional tracking performance, but also creates a perfect damping through the entire frequency range. Because of this, distortion and resonance are virtually eliminated.
To attain an optimal interaction between compliance and damping, a newly developed rubber compound for the suspension system has been used. The new rubber compound formula based on the Multi Wall Carbon Nano Tubes (MWCNT) highly efficient nano filler. The MWCNT-based compound offers desirable mechanical properties, which ensure better damping and improve the overall performance of the cartridge.
Performance with a range of compatibility
In the MC Verismo the cartridge’s contact with the tonearm takes place through three well-defined contact points placed on the top side of the cartridge. This means that the mechanical integration of the cartridge and the tonearm arm is always absolutely perfect and will result in a significant and breathtaking increase in dynamics, resolution, and richness in detail.
With optimized weight and moderate compliance to suit the majority of modern tonearms, the MC Verismo is easily compatible with an endless array of contemporary high-end turntable equipment.
Technical data
- Output voltage at 1 kHz, 5cm/sec. 0.2 mV
- Channel balance at 1 kHz 0.5 dB
- Channel separation at 1 kHz 25 dB
- Channel separation at 15 kHz 20 dB
- Frequency response 20 Hz-20 kHz +2 dB/- 1 dB
- Tracking ability at 315 Hz at recommended tracking force 80 µm
- Compliance, dynamic, lateral 13 µm/mN
- Stylus type Special polished Nude Ortofon Replicant 100 on Diamond Cantilever
- Stylus tip radius r/R 5/100 µm
- Tracking force, recommended 2.6 g (26 mN)
- Tracking angle 23°
- Internal impedance, DC resistance 7 Ohm
- Recommended load impedance 10 Ohm
- Coil wire material Aucurum, gold-plated, 6NX oxygen free copper
- Cartridge body material SLM Titanium
- Cartridge colour Silver
- Cartidge weight 9.5 g