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Ortofon 2M Black
The 2M Black is the flagship of the series, and it lives up to this with flying colors. You can hear every little detail in the music from every part of the spectrum. Just the way the artist wanted you to. This is for those who want to sense the presence of the artist in the room when they listen to their records.
Accuracy level
With the 2M Black, you will not only hear the music, but you will sense the presence of the artist in the room while listening to your favorite records.
Stylus
The 2M Black is graced with a Shibata diamond that gives it contact with the groove like nothing else. The slim, highly polished profile allows an exceedingly wide contact area to the groove walls and ensures notably detailed reproduction throughout the spectrum, including even the most high frequency groove information.
Exploring the lineup
The 2M series is built on our philosophy of accuracy in sound. All our experience, know-how, technology, and innovation has gone into making it the series that lets you hear the music the way the artist intended. In every piece of every cartridge, we strive for perfection, and when the technology can’t deliver the quality we want - we invent something that can. To ensure the highest of quality in our product we keep everything close. All our cartridges are designed and crafted right here in Denmark.
The 2M Series is developed in conjunction with the Danish Industrial designer Møller Jensen Design. Inspired by the facets of a diamond, whose contours gracefully trace the grooves on a record’s surface, the 2M’s handsome elegance establishes a great combination of form and functionality.
Features
The 2M Black uses a special engine featuring Ortofon’s very own invention: split pole pins upgraded with a silver-plated copper wire.
The 2M Series is designed for easy cartridge mounting, weight, and size to fit the most common turntables today.
The 2M Series are available in four different product variant configurations: the 2M for most common turntables on the market; the 2M Premounted, for customers who wish direct and easy mounting and replacement on their S-shaped tonearm; the 2M Verso, for bottom mount headshells; and the 2MR, which is designed cartridge housing tailored for turntables and tonearms like Rega, matching their requirement for low-form factor cartridges.
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Professional Reviews 91/100
Deliciously Crispy
Sound Quality
92/100
Build Quality
87/100
Features Usability
85/100
Value for Money
91/100
With its nude Shibata stylus, the Ortofon 2M Black delivers exceptional resolution, fast, weighty bass and open treble without tipping into brightness. Analogholic highlights its lifelike vocals and dynamic drive, while Gramophone celebrates its remarkably transparent, groove-level retrieval—an absorbing moving-magnet performer for revealing vinyl systems.
What Reviewers Are Saying
Pros
Highly resolving, transparent presentation retrieves fine detail across the frequency range.
Combines quick, impactful bass with smooth, realistic midrange and airy, non-bright treble.
Neutral, versatile balance works convincingly across a wide range of musical genres.
&
Cons
Careful alignment and capacitance matching are important to unlock its best dynamics, imaging and resolution.
Its revealing nature exposes record wear, surface noise and other flaws on less-than-pristine vinyl.
SOUND QUALITY PERFORMANCE 92/100
Reviewers consistently hear an unusually transparent, resolving moving-magnet presentation that remains balanced and musically convincing across genres. It combines impactful, controlled bass and realistic midrange presence with open, detailed treble, though its spatial depth is described as good rather than class-leading.
Overall Sound
94/100
The 2M Black is widely praised for its resolution, tonal evenness and realism. Part Time Audiophile found it neutral without sterility, with smooth and accurate mids plus authoritative bass, while Analogholic heard outstanding resolution, dynamics, impactful bass and highly convincing vocals. Gramophone calls it exceptionally transparent and resolving, describing it as a leading example of what moving-magnet cartridges can achieve.
Tracking Retrieval
92/100
Its nude Shibata stylus is reported to retrieve a great deal of information, with reviewers hearing deeper into recordings, crisp treble detail and resolution across bass, midrange and treble. Gramophone says it gets especially close to the groove and exposes everything on the record, including imperfections, so record condition becomes more audible as resolution rises.
Soundstage Imaging
87/100
Part Time Audiophile found imaging and soundstage good, with a presentation that moved beyond the usual flat two-dimensional effect and became more pinpoint after setup changes. Depth was not described as especially profound, and Analogholic preferred the comparison cartridge for soundstage depth and spatial resolution.
FEATURES USABILITY PERFORMANCE 85/100
Tonearm compatibility / system fit.
Tonearm Compatibility
85/100
With 22 µm/mN compliance, the 2M Black is best suited to low- and medium-mass tonearms, as Analogholic notes. Its standard moving-magnet output makes phono-stage matching relatively straightforward, but careful arm matching and capacitance adjustment can materially affect dynamics and overall performance.
Assessments of Build Quality, Usability, and Overall Propositions.
Build Quality
87/100
The 2M Black uses a nude Shibata stylus on an aluminium cantilever, a specification aligned with its high-resolution presentation. The supplied reviews say little about long-term durability, mounting hardware or the finer details of physical finish.
Value for Money
91/100
At roughly $695, Analogholic explicitly recommends the 2M Black to buyers seeking a moving-magnet cartridge below $700. Part Time Audiophile also raises the question of whether the pricier LVB 250 meaningfully improves price-to-performance, reinforcing the appeal of the standard Black within Ortofon's own range.
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Verified Dealers
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Authorized dealers for Ortofon 2M Black
- In Living Stereo — in-store — New York City, New York, United States (website)
- Resolution A/V — in-store — New York City, New York, United States (website)
- The Audio Association — in-store — Anaheim, California, United States (website)
- 2C Stereo — in-store — Washington, District of Columbia, United States (website)
- à la carte productions — in-store — Palm Coast, Florida, United States (website)
- A Tube High Fidelity — online and in-store — Almere, Flevoland, Netherlands (website)
- A/V Solutions — in-store — Pleasanton, California, United States (website)
- Accent On Music — in-store — Mount Kisco, New York, United States (website)
- Acoustic Sounds — online and in-store — Salina, Kansas, United States (website)
- Acoustic Streams — in-store — Lower Drift, England, United Kingdom (website)
and 371 more verified dealers