Introduction
The budget phono cartridge market is surprisingly thin. You have the Numark Groove tool, the Stanton Discmaster, some cryptically named Shure cartridges that probably haven't changed since the mid-seventies, and that's about it.
Not satisfied with this state of affairs, Ortofon has released the Omega "General Purpose Turntable Cartridge". This new candidate for your entry-level cartridge dollar may surprise, if Ortofon's track record is any indication.
The Alpha and Omega
The Ortofon DJ cartridge line-up runs from the giddy heights of the Nightclub v2 and Q.Bert concordes down through the Elektro and Scratch special-purpose midrange carts and landing with a thud next to the DJ Pro S entry level cartridge. Ortofon's hi-fi line starts with the OM 5E, and proceeds upwards in a fashion largely dependent on the question: "How many zeroes on the end of the price tag?"
The Omega uses the same OM housing familiar to the Ortofon DJ line, comes in the same box and can accept the same stylii - if you so desired you could pop on an Arkiv or Q.Bert stylus with no problems other than a horrid colour clash. However, the Omega is not a DJ cartridge if the marketing is to be believed. This cartridge is meant as a drop-in replacement for the stock needles found on the new breed of USB-enabled vinyl archiving turntables. These turntables are sprouting in consumer electronics stores and big box retail chains, and are set to take the re-emerging vinyl market by storm - or at least Citronic hopes so.
This cartridge is not meant to be taken as a cheaper alternative to the DJ Pro then, but the somewhat less well-known OM 5E hi-fi cart. The Omega has earned the dubious distinction of being the absolute cheapest Ortofon cartridge money can buy - beating the already cheap hi-fi OM 5E and DJ Pro S cartridges by a cool twenty to thirty dollars per, street price.
While we'll certainly be throwing down some breaks on this needle to see what it can take, the Omega is more of a sheep in wolf's clothing, an entry-level hi-fi cartrige that wound up in a housing now known for DJ-focused models and subsequently arriving in callous, uncaring, DJ hands. This cartridge is specifically designed for casual listening, and is definitely not intended for this new-fangled "itching" that some young 'uns are abusing their phonographic recordings with. But we'll do that anyway.
Obviously.
The Boring Technical Bits
The Omega is a standard 1/2" headshell-mount 33 or 45RPM capable moving magnet cartridge good for your common or garden-variety turntable. It sports a relatively average output volume of 4mV - low compared to most DJ styli, high compared to moving coil hi-fi styli. The stylus has a recommended tracking weight of 1.75 grams, and a tracking weight range of 1.5 to 2 grams, making it a very lightweight stylus indeed.
The cartridge does use an elliptical stylus, so don't stick this on a straight-arm DJ turntable without an angled headshell unless you really want to broaden the grooves in your records. This
elliptical cut of stylus should mean the cartridge will better fidelity for general listening, but heightened cue-burn should you choose to use it for DJ purposes.
The (Dull) Shiny
The Omega is definitely not geared for blinged up club DJs. Ortofon made this cartridge look about as boring as they possibly could. It's a sort of off-grey colour, and has a plain black Greek Omega stamped onto the stylus. It won't clash with anything, but it sure won't set off those hot new metallic red headshells you picked up either.
Think "business suit" to describe the looks of this cartridge. It's clean, it's well-cut, it's quite snappy in a bland sort of way and there's fundamentally nothing really wrong with it - it just won't be making heads turn at your next gig. Not that anyone but you can actually see it anyway; this is a fact that keeps the Shure Whitelabel awake at night, cold analog sweat running down its perfectly sculpted curves.
The Patented Listen Test
Spac Hand Luke - Sidthug EP 33RPM 12" (Rephlex)
The Dandy Warhols - Smoke It 33RPM 7" (Parlophone)
The Dzihan and Kamien Orchestra - Live in Vienna 33RPM 12" (Couch Records)
The Art of Noise - Legs 45RPM 12" (Chrysalis Records)
Statik Sound System - Remix Selection 33RPM 12" (Cup of Tea Records)
This is an interesting cartridge on the audio front, all told.
First impression: this cart produces a silly quantity of bass. Rattle the windows and kill your
hamster sort of bass.
The curve in general strikes me as a cheap populist shot at making someone inexperienced with hi-fi gear think it sounds awesome. Overdriven bass and high end is a technique commonly used by Sennheiser and other good-but-not-great manufacturers in headphones for their cheaper models - make some equipment that tries to kick your eardrums through your medulla then demo it to an average young man on the street, and he will opine: "yieah maytee, awesome bass bro, where can I nick me some cuz?"
It's fatiguing to listen to such a bass-heavy cartridge through headphones, and in a needle with hi-fi aspirations the Omega has far too warped a frequency response curve to be considered truly 'great'. I can't help but feel the bass has been tweaked to hide deficiencies in the sound quality overall.
That aside, the Omega while quite listenable, if a bit flat sounding. I may be doing at injustice by using a benchmark needle that costs something like four to five times as much, but this is not what I would consider an archival or hi-fi grade needle. The Omega is a definite major step down from the Ortofon Arkiv that I usually use for listening.
While the Omega may not be truly high fidelity, it definitely isn't bad, especially given its price - the needle is actually pretty decent in its bracket, especially on unexceptional speakers. The frequency response curve is about right if your stereo doesn't have real woofers to begin with, and the fidelity is not likely to be a problem given that the turntable, mixer and/or stereo you're likely to use with an Omega will be losing an awful lot more fidelity than this cartridge.
So the Omega isn't really a hi-fi cartridge. But it's not bad regardless. It won't make your Bang and Olufsen sound system actually seem worth the mortgage you took out to pay for it, but it will produce a decent signal for an average home stereo. Which is roughly what Ortofon claims it will do on their shiny white-and-red Omega box.
Some Practical Jockeying Advice
The lightness of the tracking force is immediately evident when you go to cue a record. Usually a DJ cartridge runs at about 3.5 to 4 grams of tracking weight, swapping down to 1.5 to 2 will be a very different experience. You couldn't run this cart at 3 grams or more even if you wanted to, the housing almost scrapes along the record - it's a very low-riding cartridge to begin with, and it's not designed to take much weight. It takes quite some careful practice to adjust to cueing with a light tracking weight, so don't expect to throw it on and go if you want to try the Omega.
It's very doubtful that the Omega's needle can take many knocks and drops. There is almost no suspension, and the stylus itself is very thin. It doesn't bounce like a Numark Groove Tool, and it doesn't have an indestructible stylus the width of your thumb like a Stanton Discmaster. It needs some care to get the best use out of it.
Wiki-wiki-wah
This cartridge is definitely not aimed at DJs. The box states that this cartridge is "suitable for
most consumer and USB turntables", which was probably not intended to include, say, a Numark TTX. Though that is both a consumer product and USB enabled. But in this case we're using a healthy hi-fi middle ground - a Vestax PDX-3000 Mix.
After the sound quality test, the Omega was attached to the aforementioned Vestax turntable in place of the Ortofon DJ Pro S normally adorning the end of the tonearm, and some 'phat' beats were 'dropped' to see if the difference between the two was significant.
The answer is "not really". The Omega is a bit more finicky to cue than than the DJ Pro S, but is otherwise a quite reasonable entry-level cartridge to mix with. The ultra-light weight and very flexible stylus makes finding the right groove a bit tricky, but it tracks perfectly well when holding the downbeat, and backspins well with surprisingly few skips.
The only caveat is that the light tracking weight makes the Omega a little odd on damaged or warped records. There's a noticeable bend in the pitch sometimes, and it hops noticeably on creases in vinyl, characteristics the DJ Pro S with its higher tracking weight did not display.
The Omega immediately lost out the moment a DVS timecode record was tried though. Stutters, pitch-bends, quarter-beat dropouts, the works - just while playing a song on quartz lock. It's not just me either, the DVS reports an error rate of 40% while using the Omega, compared to around 6% with the DJ Pro S, which is a relatively average number. Raising the noise-pass floor completely fails to rectify the problem, and my fiddlings failed to get it anywhere even close to the DJ Pro S for DVS work, keeping in mind that the DJ Pro S is the entry-level DJ cartridge from Ortofon. It's hard to say what might be causing this problem, but I strongly suspect it won't be easy to get the Omega to the required standard for your DVS of choice.
Finally, when I was absolutely sure I was done with reviewing all other elements of the Omega, I broke out some samples with some trepidation, and was quickly vindicated in my misgivings about the Omega as a DJ cartridge. You should not use the Omega for serious scratching. Cute squirrels will die every time you do an uzi. Fabergé eggs can take more punishment. It will put up with some abuse from back-cuing, but this cartridge has a distressing vibrating wobble when being juggled - I get the impression it wouldn't take long before the stylus work-hardens and snaps. But by that point you'd be knee-deep in squirrels and might find it hard to concentrate on your flares. You monster.
This cartridge is cheap, very cheap indeed. It has an RRP of U$39.99 and a street price of U$29.99 and as such it is basically the cheapest name-brand cartridge on the market excepting some Shure carts, notably the M25C and well... The Numark Groove Tool, which doesn't bear thinking about really. At the same $30 price basically you basically have second hand carts, or the Stanton 400v3 - and that's basically it.
So to compare it with the only competitor at the same price, the Omega has roughly the same sonic qualities as the 400v3 - overdriven bass and a dipped sound curve - with the sound quality award going to the Omega, if only due to brand-name bias. The Omega tracks better at lower weights, but can't be cranked up anywhere near the 5-7 grams that the 400v3 can take. The 400 will have much worse cue burn and record wear given its higher tracking weight, but is a little tougher than the Omega. Basically the Omega trades in durability for a lower tracking weight and slightly better sound than the 400v3 – so it depends what you're looking for.
If you've just spent a couple hundred dollars on a basic Numark or Citronic turntable to listen to those old records in your attic, spending another thirty to hear what's actually carved into them may not be such a bad plan. This cartridge is almost certainly a cut above the generics that ship with all-in-one turntable boxes, and at the price Ortofon is asking, it's difficult to argue that this isn't a bargain upgrade. It won't do a high-end turntable or sound system justice, but Ortofon isn't targeting the Omega at audiophiles, it's targeting it at occasional listeners and those who want to dust off their old collection of 45s, and it hits this target market with impressive accuracy.
While there are some good things to say about it, the Omega may not be such a great investment for DJs. As an absolute bare minimum entry for a bedroom DJ wanting to play vinyl records one after another it's still difficult to recommend. Since entry-level mixers will destroy any fidelity maintained by even very good cartridges, something cheap, nasty - but tough - like a back-stocked Stanton Discmaster II would be a much better option for those on a shoe-string budget, because its stylus won't need replacing every other week.
Truly, for anyone desiring to scratch, juggle, or use a digital vinyl system - more scratch, if you'll excuse the pun, is required. Do not treat this cartridge as a cheap substitute for the Ortofon DJ Pro S entry-level carts, and two Omegas are certainly not a patch on a good pair of Shure M44-7 or Ortofon Nightclub cartridges. It just won't, ah, cut it for serious DJ work, no matter how cheap it is.
Conclusions
If you want a good deal on a basically good stylus to improve a USB recording turntable or cheap-and-cheerful Citronic, the Ortofon Omega is a good choice. For all the marketing it's a ridiculously low cost, quite listenable entry-level cartridge. It won't make the cheap turntable you're likely to apply it to shine, but it will probably improve the sound noticeably over included OEM cartridges. Ortofon levelled their sights on an emerging casual consumer market, and perfectly threaded the needle so to speak. This cartridge is perfect for the type of consumer it is marketed to.
For those starting bedroom DJs wanting an absolute entry-level cartridge the Omega is not a particularly bad choice, beating the same-cost options from Shure and Stanton by a hair. It works for playing records, isn't terrible to cue and is a decent sonic match for cheap PA systems. Downsides are basically the lack of durability and uselessness for scratching.
I think the best feature of this cartridge is that you can buy a nicer Ortofon DJ needle later and swap it in with no problems. It's nice to have an upgrade path, even on the cheapest of gear.
Still, for DJ use the Omega is tough to recommend. For a twenty dollars more you can get a Shure M44G or Ortofon MF6 which will last you forever and a day with no need at all to upgrade. At roughly the same price point there is also the entry-level DJ cart from Ortofon - the DJ Pro S – preferred by this reviewer. The DJ Pro S is much nicer to use and will take timecode in its stride. Either of these options are just much better value for DJs, and it's not surprising - the Omega is just not a DJ needle when it comes down to it, and Ortofon makes no bones about it.
Available from an electronics store stocking USB turntables near you. Dead hamster not included.
Strengths:
- Huge bass
- $30 for an Ortofon!
- Can upgrade needle later
Weaknesses:
- Huge bass
- Only for masochistic or really broke DJs
- Generally mediocre sound quality
Better than: A Numark Groove Tool
Worse than: An Ortofon MF6
But: The target audience is perfectly catered to by the Omega.
