At some stage in every company’s life, they encounter an opponent. That opponent will have a huge mindshare with a very successful product, and no amount of advertising, ‘grassroots’ word of mouth or competition on price will seem to shift the opponent.

Ortofon’s MF cartridges line up to batter Shure’s M44 brick wall.

What's What

The MF6 and MF7 cartridges are a pair of cartridges available from Ortofon that, odds on, are designed to compete with the famous Shure M44G and M44-7. The M44-6, er, MF6 is the all-rounder cartrige, and the MF7 is the more scratch-focused of the duo, just as with its Shure counterpart.

Both cartridges share a white/red colour scheme, the MF6 with a red stylus on a white OM mount, the MF7 the inverse. Quite dashing – the colours look snazzy on a black headshell.

The MF carts come in Ortofon's standard velour-lined grey tray in a card box. The headshell is supplied with some appropriate headshell screws and a miniature screw driver to match. Product presentation is generally excellent. The industrial-punk box art is hit or miss depending on tastes, but inside the box it's Ortofon quality all the way.

Dial-in Service

The MF cartridges are similar but not identical in numeric characteristics, falling somewhere in the middle-upper range of the spectrum with regards to output volume – 6mV for the MF6, 7mV for the MF7. Both use a spherical stylus, the MF6 tracking at 3 grams, the MF7 tracking at a relatively heavyweight 4. Neither cartridge needs its weight adjusted up or down to track well, and both seem to work best without anti-skate.

Both cartridges have tough-as-nails styli and suspension, with the MF7 winning out for the bomb-shelter suspension prize.

The cartridges break in nicely, and diverge in characteristic as soon as they hit the record.

Listening Test Methodology

To test the MF6 and MF7 for sound quality I pitched it against Ortofon's own transcription standard, the Arkiv. With the Arkiv as the reference listening, I listened to the MF6 and then the MF7 play the following records, covering a wide variety of genres:

808 State – Cubik Olympic 45RPM 12" (WEA Records Ltd.)
The Art of Noise - Legs 45RPM 12" (Chrysalis Records)
London Elektricity - The Strangest Secret in the World 33RPM 12" (Hospital)
The Dandy Warhols - Smoke It 33RPM 7" (Parlophone)
Klute – Growl / Lost Connection 45RPM 12” (Commercial Suicide)

For those interested, the signal path is as follows:

MF6/MF7 on Vestax HS-1 headshell or Arkiv Concorde
Vestax PDX-3000 Mix S-arm turntable with anti-skate off
NAD PP-2 Phono amplifier
Generic RCA cable
M-Audio Delta 1010LT ADCs @ 24 bit 96Khz
JACK loopback
M-Audio Delta 1010LT DACs @ 24 bit 96Khz
Alesis RA-100 reference power amplifier
Loudspeaker Kit M5 monitors, Limited Yorick Edition
Yorick's ears

Sound Check

MF6: This cartridge sounds somewhat stiff. It has a very strong midrange, with definitely reduced bass. The MF6 has a classic electronic sound with hi-hats and synth popping out very nicely. For anyone into playing breaks, this is where it’s at. The MF6 lends an extremely palatable flavour to hip-hop, breaks, electro and other relatively minimalist compositions.

The bass definitely needs amping if you want to kick in a really killer bassline – some tracks definitely showed this cart's preference for the mid-range, where a normally a massive bassline kicks in it just doesn’t have the usual punch, favouring the midrange. The cartridge has good detail in mid-low to upper frequencies, but muddies a bit at very low frequencies especially when combined with mid-range sounds. Works well for synth and bass drums, not so much with real instruments.

This cartridge is not something I would use to play rock, rare grooves or anything with live instrumentation. But then again, I don’t play that much. I’d just slap on some 808 State and groove the fuck out. Loving every moment of it.



MF7: This cartridge sounds even more stiff than the MF6, with a huge bias for higher frequencies. This cart has almost no bass to it, pegging it immediately as a scratch-focused cartridge.

Sound-wise the MF7 is not something I would use for anything but scratching, it’s just not nice to listen to. Between the massively emphasised mid-highs and lack of bass, the cartridge just isn’t geared for listening – read on for the scratch results though.

One other thing, the surface noise on the MF7 is insane, cutting through my monitor speakers even at reasonably high volume levels. I’ve never heard a cartridge produce this much noise sans amplification, it’s even louder than a Stanton Discmaster II, which often has punters thinking “Man, my tinnitus is getting bad.”

Scritchy-Scratch

Short of high-level tectonic activity or artillery bombardment in the local area, these carts aren’t going anywhere. They’re completely immovable, rock solid, stick like glue and grip fast.
As to how they sound when scratching, the MF7 is where the real interest lies. It’s almost completely geared for scratching to begin with, so very little EQ tweaking is required to cut rumble and get a scratch sounding as it should. Everything about the cartridge just ‘works’ for scratching, it’s quite a remarkable package.

The MF6 needs the usual EQ rebalance to get rid of platter rumble, but once set up it’s a very respectable scratch cart. It doesn’t have the same inherent strength in the area that the MF7 does, but with the trade-in of a bit of the scratch sound the MF6 gains a lot of chops in the sound quality.

In short, if you do nothing but bust epic flares day-in day-out, the MF7 is the superior cartridge and a very strong choice for scratch DJs. If you like to scratch, but occasionally play a song right through, or edge towards the breaks end of the spectrum, the MF6 will hold up excellently with a little bit of a cut in the bass.

Free Marketeering (or: What it Costs)

The Ortofon MF6 has an MSRP of $90, and can be found for U$60 street price. The MF7 has an MSRP of $95 and can be found for $70 street price. Both cartridges retail for as low as $50-55 when you're searching. Replacement styli are the usual $30-35.

Interestingly, the MF6's street price is identical to the street price of the Shure M44G, and the MF7's is identical to the street price of the M44-7. Truly, this is a curious coincidence.

As to whether these are a good buy at the price, the answer is a pretty emphatic yes. They cost a full $25 less than the Ortofon Qbert, Shure Whitelabel or other premium cartridge, placing them solidly within the budget of any cost-conscious DJ. A hundred, hundred ten dollars for a pair of cartridges this solid under pressure is a very solid deal.

It’s common for an expert Interweb DJ to say to a new, larval DJ asking endearing questions about cartridges to say something like “Don’t bother with anything less than a Shure 44G”. It seems that Ortofon has pitched their cartridge at the DJ who’s serious about the hobby and wants to make a good investment in cartridges to last.

The Ortofon MF6 and MF7 are winners at the price.

Conclusions

The MF6 and MF7 are a straight-up no-holds barred attack on the Shure M44 mindshare in the mid-range DJ cartridge market. Frankly, they’re a bloody excellent pair of carts and at a good price. The MF6 is for breaks and hip-hop DJs, MF7 for straight-up turntablists. Respect these cartridges.

MF6

Strengths:
- Balance is very good for drum breaks, electro
- Immovable object

Weaknesses:
- Muddied sound in complex tracks
- Loud midrange

MF7

Strengths:
- Scratcher’s delight
- As likely to move as Uluru (Google it - I had to... Gizmo)

Weaknesses:
- Poor balance for playing music
- Crazy surface noise

As a duo:

Better than: Shure M44G / M44-7
Worse than: Ortofon Nightclub II / Ortofon Qbert
But: Can Ortofon overcome the Shure mindshare?