As I was doing a final edit on this column, I received very sad news from Leif Johannsen, the chief officer of acoustics and technology for cartridge manufacturer Ortofon A/S: Kim Petersen, described by Johannsen as his “right hand and new cartridge design and listening partner” and the company’s “top cartridge expert,” passed away suddenly at age 52. Mr. Petersen had worked all of his adult life at Ortofon (30 years), and, according to Johannsen, “knew everything about our cartridges, how they are/were produced, and all of the equipment used” in their manufacture. Johannsen added, “He was a dedicated music lover and, according to his partner, had just finished listening to a batch of Anna D’s when it happened, though at this time the exact cause of death is unknown.” Heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Petersen and the Ortofon family.

Anna Domine
In 2018, Ortofon (footnote 1) celebrated its 100th anniversary by releasing the MC Century, a limited-edition (100 units), top-of-the-line ($12,000) cartridge that represented everything Leif Johannsen had learned in more than a decade of cartridge design and construction for the company.

Probably to his surprise—and that of company CEO and eternal vinyl-resurgence skeptic Christen H. Nielsen—the MC Century sold out quickly. That didn’t mean that all 100 MC Centurys immediately found their way into consumers’ hands but rather that distributors and retailers worldwide bought them—which is why, many months after they were sold out, some were still available at retail. (As of this writing, I think, none are left.)

Thus, for Johannsen, the question was now: What to do next?

For the company’s 90th anniversary, he’d moved dramatically into SLM (selective laser melting) technology to produce the radically shaped metal body of the limited-edition (500 units) A90 cartridge—something that could not be carved from solid metal using traditional machining. SLM welds metal particle by particle, layer by layer, and its use in manufacturing

the A90’s one-piece stainless steel body gave Ortofon unprecedented control over mass and density, creating a structure the company describes as self-damping. I believe analog history will judge the A90 to be one of the greatest achievements and advances in phono cartridge design.

In 2015, in honor of the company’s recently observed 95th anniversary, Johannsen produced the limited-edition (500 units) A95, again using SLM technology—but this time with a frame of titanium. Two years before that, in 2013, Ortofon introduced their new flagship, Johannsen’s MC Anna cartridge, named after opera diva Anna Netrebko. The $8499 cartridge sold for more than twice the price of the A90 ($4200 in its day) and was the first Ortofon to use a titanium SLM body. In addition, the Anna featured a then-new, patent-pending high-efficiency magnet system and a far lower-compliance suspension than that of the A90: just 9µm/mN, in contrast with the A90’s 16µm/mN. The Anna’s zaftig body (befitting a diva) weighed in at 16gm vs the A90’s 8gm. It was fitted with a boron cantilever and a nude Replicant stylus. This was a heavy, low-compliance cartridge that required a high mass arm with chatter-free precision bearings to deliver its best performance.

Is that a subminiature drinking-bird toy or the solid diamond cantilever and nude Replicant stylus of the MC Anna Diamond?

I reviewed the Anna positively and bought it as one of my references—though I wrote that “compared to the (Lyra) Atlas, transients in the midbass and below were slightly softer, which could make them more or less attractive depending upon the rest of your system.”

The goal with Anna was to step well beyond the A90 in terms of dynamics and tonal richness, and in both of those areas—and in every other realm—the costly Anna surpassed the A90. (But if I were solely interested in electronic rock music, I’d go for the speedy, lean A90.)

What comes after the Century?
At the 2019 High End show in Munich, Ortofon introduced its new flagship, the MC Anna Diamond. As has become customary, one of my first stops at the show was to meet with Leif Johannsen. I recorded a video of our time together, which began with a tour of the display cases on the show floor.

The original Anna will remain in the line, priced at $8924—which represents a modest price increase after six years in production, while the new MC Anna Diamond retails for $10,499—costly, but $1500 less expensive than the limited-edition MC Century, just as the original Anna is around $1500 less than the Anna D. Like the MC Century, the MC Anna Diamond sports a solid diamond cantilever fitted with Ortofon’s Replicant 100 diamond stylus, said to be the closest of any playback stylus to the lacquer-cutting stylus.

Johannsen told me that the diamond cantilever is of course one of the two biggest differences between the Anna and the Anna Diamond, the other being the new cartridge’s suspension materials and tuning, which more closely resemble those of the MC Century: “You can say that [the MC Anna Diamond] is basically an MC Century in an Anna body.” He added, though, that when you are talking about cartridges at this price, “everything” makes a difference; although the MC Anna Diamond is very similar to the MC Century, it is not identical, either physically (obviously) or sonically.

Three years ago, Johannsen began experimenting with the solid diamond cantilever, putting it in an Anna and also an A95. Will we see in the future an A95 D? He didn’t say (although at High End 2019, Ortofon did introduce a boron-cantilevered A95 mono). So after two years of experimenting, Ortofon introduced the diamond cantilever in the MC Century, and this year in the MC Anna Diamond—which will not be a limited-edition design but will remain in the line indefinitely. Johannsen claimed that with the MC Anna Diamond, buyers will be able to get “approximately the same sound” as a few lucky buyers got with the MC Century.

The MC Anna Diamond particulars
In addition to the SLM titanium body, solid diamond cantilever, “thin and light” Replicant 100 stylus, and specially tuned suspension—which uses custom elastomers similar to those used in the MC Century—the MC Anna Diamond’s high-efficiency magnet system features an optimized geometry and a neodymium and iron-cobalt blend claimed by Ortofon to produce “unprecedented consistency of the flux density within the system’s air gap.” The system is claimed to deliver more uniform magnetic field strength, which allows each coil to sense identical flux density regardless of position. The result, according to Ortofon, is the preservation of dynamics and impulse linearity.

Footnote 1: Ortofon A/S, Stavangervej 9, DK-4900 Nakskov, Denmark. Web: ortofon.com US distributor: Ortofon USA, 500 Executive Boulevard, Suite 102, Ossining, NY 10562. Tel: (914)762-8646

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