Ortofon Concorde MK2 Club Twin Cartridge

You don’t know what you’ve been missing until you try these. I’ve been using Shure white labels and recently purchased these and the difference is simply amazing! Clear and crisp – I only wish I made the jump sooner. The put my shure needles to shame!

First of all let me say I have been playing, listening to, and DJ’ing Vinyl for over 30 years. I own DJ systems and Audiophile systems / Turntables. I have used dozens of stylus, many from Ortofon, including their OM-Black(Audiophile). People have said this cartridge is Audiophile-ish. It is NOT, NOT even close.I picked these up to DJ a retro night with a buddy. We spun everything from 60’s Garage/70’s Soul-Funk to 80’s Alternative and Retro-Modern stuff like Khruangbin. I also, tried it out at home with some House/Deep House records.Simply put, these are HARSH & the Inner Groove Distortion was off-putting. The IGD alone is problematic enough not to use these for “Archival” purposes. (If you are Archiving, you need to be ABOVE an Ortofon Blue/Super OM-20 IMHO)I dropped a Blondie – Heart of Glass with these at one point and Debra Harry’s voice was so sibilant and BRIGHT in the wrong places.For comparison, I have the older “PINK” Ortofon Scratch that honestly out performed these.Bass was OK, but did not blow me away.Again, these are HOT, Bright, Sibilant, and had lots of IGD (on a Technics 1200GAE) – PASSIf you need an Archival stylus or entry into real Audiophile at a great price point look no further than a Nagaoka MP-150 or on budget the MP-110. If you want to keep it in the Ortofon family, Get above a OM-Blue/20. (Ortofon RED are horrible on the inner groves just like this cart)If you need a DJ cart, I find their last generation stuff to be fine, and I am back to the “Pink”, and some M44’s I had laying around.

Love them top notch

I’ve had a pair of Ortofon Nightclub cartridges for nearly 20 years and they were finally getting to the point where they needed to be replaced. I reluctantly spent the money on a pair of new Ortofon MKII Club carts, but right away noticed a problem with harshness and sibilance that another reviewer also mentioned. Straight up dance music mostly sounded good, but vocals, hi-hats and guitars all sounded sizzling with a sheen of distortion that almost sounded like inner groove distortion. I noticed that this distortion could be slightly alleviated by carefully adjusting the anti-skating on my SL-1210MK2 but it never really went away.Also one of the needles would skip on some records unless I had the anti skating set at max (3.0g) but the other needle on the same turntable did not have this problem. Unfortunately the search continues for a needle that allows DJing/slight back-cueing while still sounding as good as a $175 should.

I purchased my first Concorde MII Club a year and a half ago. Loved it!In December, 2022, I wanted an additional set for my other turntable. It was a nightmare. I received two where the stylus was out of alignment. In addition they sat entirely too close the the record. (see first pic)After repeated tries, I finally received a set where the stylus was centered, and a .05 or more distance from the record. (see second pic) VTA/ SRA set properly.Now, I am a happy camper! {:-D