BRAND: ORTOFON
SERIES: The MC Century
TYPE: Cartridge\
A newly developed Anniversary moving coil cartridge.
The MC Century represents the absolute top of Moving Coil cartridges. This state of the art product is truly exemplary of the highest degree of performance possible in contemporary analogue playback technology.
OVERVIEW
The MC Century represents numerous Ortofon design elements and ideals:
- The housing and the body of the cartridge are made in Titanium with SLM technique.
- High performance iron-cobalt alloy is applied for some parts of the magnet system.
- The armature damping system provides complete elimination of unwanted resonance.
- Ortofon Replicant 100 diamond, thin and light, with an extraordinarily large contact surface, tracing accuracy unparalleled by any other needle in existence.
- The crystal structure and exceptional hardness of the new Diamond cantilever ensures the best possible interface between the stylus and the armature.
- The combination of Nude Ortofon Replicant 100 diamond on Diamond cantilever provides extremely responsive and transparent sound reproduction.
Advancements in technology
An engineering feature adding to the damping capability of the MC Century cartridge is the Selective Laser Melting processin which fine particles of Titanium are welded together, layer-by-layer, to construct a single piece body devoid of unnecessary material. Using this technique the density of the body can be precisely controlled, allowing for extremely high internal damping. The final result provides absolute freedom from resonances existing in the cartridge body material and allows for the MC Century to be perfectly matched with an extremely wide array of different tonearms.
Because of the nature of SLM-based construction, each cartridge body is cosmetically unique and will show small dimples or lines under close examination.
Magnet and coils system and damping
The optimized geometry of the high efficiency magnet system combined with choice of materials like neodymium and iron-cobalt offers an unprecedented consistency of the flux density within the system’s air gap. Due to an increase of active material inside of the magnet system, the magnetic field strength is delivered more uniformly, allowing each coil to sense identical flux density regardless of its position. Because of this, dynamics and impulse linearity are preserved to an overwhelming extent.
Using expensive ultrapure oxygen free copper allows for zero-loss transmission of the diamonds movements via Diamond cantilever. This configuration combines low moving mass with an extremely high degree of rigidity.
The MC Century also uses a new degree of control over vibrations by a way of a newly-improved wide-range armature damping system (WRD). By extending the armature beyond the coils, it can interface directly with the rubber dampers, which sandwich a small heavy disc of platinum. This offers more consistent movement, and thereby better stereo perspective and transient delineation.
Extremely high-end materials
The specially designed precision moulded non-magnetic armature achieves an extreme precision in each coil turn in all layers. The armature design allows a very well defined interface to the rubber absorbers. The material applied for the armature has very high strength and rigidity.
The bottom cover has been constructed from a special proprietary TPE (Thermo-Plastic Elastomer) material, which provides extremely high damping.
As in the Exclusives series cartridges, the MC Century makes use of Ortofon’s Replicant 100 diamond, known for its thin and light profile and extraordinarily large contact surface. Since the Replicant 100 is closest to the shape of the cutting stylus, it can trace with accuracy unparalleled by any other needle in existence. Special polishing of the diamond along with the use of a Diamond cantilever offer extremely transparency, speed, and responsiveness beyond that of any other combination.
Flexibility and performance with a range of compatibility
Output impedance of 6 Ohm and a low to medium output voltage of 0.2 mV make the MC Century a perfect partner for most phono preamps and step-up transformers, including the Ortofon ST-80 SE.
Ortofon high quality headshells LH-8000 and LH-9000 are recommended for the MC Century.
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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Output voltage at 1000 Hz, 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
22 dB
Frequency response
20 Hz-20 kHz +/- 1.5 dB
Tracking ability at 315Hz at recommended tracking force
80 µm
Compliance, dynamic, lateral
9 µm/mN
Stylus type
Special polished Nude Ortofon Replicant 100 on Diamond Cantilever
Stylus tip radius
r/R 5/100 µm
Tracking force, recommended
2,4 g (24 mN)
Tracking angle
23°
Internal impedance, DC resistance
6 Ohm
Recommended load impedance
> 10 Ohm
Cartridge body material
SLM Titanium
Cartridge colour
Silver/Black
Cartridge weight
15 gram
