p-mount cartridge shootout - LP Gear v Ortofon

The eternal dilemma for the committed "audiophile" (a hifi nut who should be "committed"!) is wondering what items of equipment could be better than what you already have, seeking out the giant-killing item that outperforms its price point, and these days just being able to audition equipment when bricks'n mortar hifi stores are getting thin on the ground. If you happen to have a turntable whose tonearm only uses "T4P" p-mount cartridges your search gets harder because no new turntables are made that use this mount first developed by Technics back in the 1980s for it's parallel tracking units (and a few pivoted arm turntables, too).

Aside from having a plug-in connector, the T4P standard dictated cartridge dimensions and weight, as well as vertical tracking force - so you could literally just plug and play when installing a new cartridge; no faffing about with the overhang, alignment and VTF/VTA settings that plagued the old fashioned half-inch mount type of cartridge. Add this to fact that most (all?) p-mount using turntables had automatic operation, and you had almost CD-like ease of use.

The problems that Technics, and other manufacturers who had adopted the standard faced were twofold. First, CD and it's "perfect sound forever" on an "indestructible" little silver disc was just round the corner, and the record majors saw a huge financial incentive in promoting a product that was cheaper to produce than an LP - while selling it for a substantially more. LP quality standards had fallen in an attempt make CD seem even better, too. Secondly there was the audiophile disdain (certainly in the UK) for both Japanese turntables in general (why use a microprocessor controlled marvel when a rubber-band driven deck just had more "soul" and obviously sounded better) and these little p-mount cartridges in particular. Plug and play did away with the audiophile's raison d'etre of using his (almost certainly "his" - women would have had more sense) knowledge and skill in choosing and aligning half-inch mount jobbies.

So CD came to rule the audiophile roost for a long time, the mass market p-mount turntables were not particularly good, and p-mount cartridges came to occupy a very niche market supporting the decks already made - a situation that exists to this day. This is regrettable as p-mounts offered a means for non-technical users to get perfectly aligned cartridges and the quality cartridges that Technics produced at the time should have had time to develop and mature.

Which brings us, eventually, to the videos in this post. The p-mount OMP40 from Danish maker Ortofon is arguably one of the best specified p-mounts ever made, with its Fritz Geiger 70 stylus profile. Japanese cartridge maker Audio-Technica made (and makes) many, many variants of it's p-mount offerings, but US retailer LP Gear has chosen to mate the AT body with a shibata-tipped stylus in it's Reference Series - the VS. Mr Shibata was the Japanese engineer at JVC in he 1970s who came up with a stylus profile capable of making the CD-4 quadraphonic system work - it tracked the very high carrier frequency needed to decode the rear channels from the stereo channels of a CD-4 LP.

Both these cartridges with advanced stylus profiles are available new now - though you may have to buy an OMP10 first for its body and then get a Stylus 40 to swap out, which is an expensive way of doing it - especially when you consider that a Stylus 40 sells for $100 more than a complete VS. So is the VS a giant killer? If you have a p-mount how do think they compare with yours? Comments here, or on the You Tube pages are most welcome.

There are three tracks used - Chris Rea's Bombollini, Fighting The Flab from the John Dankworth Big Band, and some orchestral music from the film Escape Me Never by Sir William Walton conducted by Bernard Herrmann (another track from this album was featured here). The You Tube pages have links to jump to various points in the tracks.

The turntable featured is my Technics SL-QL1 - a quartz-locked, parallel tracking direct drive which has been modified by taking the power supply outboard, installing additional damping and new footers, and by having a copper skin bonded to the original platter to nullify any ringing. Phono amplification is by Graham Slee's top-of-the range MM stage, the Accession, with it's unique two-stage patented EQ, to allow both cartridges to show the best of their abilities.


Round 1 - Pop

Cartridge: LP Gear Reference VS and Ortofon OPM40

Phono amp: Graham Slee Accession

Turntable: Technics SL-QL1

Round 2 - Jazz

Cartridge: LP Gear Reference VS and Ortofon OPM40

Phono amp: Graham Slee Accession

Turntable: Technics SL-QL1

Round 3 - Orchestral

Cartridge: LP Gear Reference VS and Ortofon OPM40

Phono amp: Graham Slee Accession

Turntable: Technics SL-QL1