Danish company Ortofon began life in 1918 and is the world's largest manufacturer of magnetic cartridges with annual sales of over 500,000 units. Between the world wars, Ortofon, or the Electrical Phono Film Company as it was known then, was an innovator during the fascinating evolution of the sound film - a motion picture with synchronized sound. With the "talkies" came the need to overcome the many obstacles hindering sound synchronization and reproduction in a public space.

During the late forties, after being highly sucessful in the sound film industry, Ortofon became involved with improvements to the cutting heads used in the growing gramophone industry and in 1948 produced the world's first moving coil cartridge engineered with characteristics matching the quality of the cutterhead. With the popularity of the vinyl LP, Ortofon became increasingly specialized in the gramophone world and innovation continued over the following decades in both vinyl cutting technology and cartridges for sound reproduction. Notable innovations in cartridge design include the world's first low mass very high compliance magnetic cartridge in 1981 and the new Ortofon Xpression High end integrated cartridge in 2011. This one-piece cartridge connects to the tonearm directly without the need for a headshell or headshell leads.

More recently Ortofon has embraced SLM manufacturing techniques for cartridges such as the Xpression, and diversified further with Ortofon Microtech, a B2B division for micro-engineered components. Click to see Ortofon Technology video

Ortofon manufactures a wide range of superbly manufactured cartridges, tonearms, step-up transformers, cartridge and turntable accessories at all price points. Standardization across the products makes upgrading easy. Ortofon provides a comprehensive range of products for DJ's and three-quarters of cartridge sales are in that business.

All Ortofon products including the classic SPU range, high output moving coil cartridges, and lower cost cartridges are available from kemela.
Consult with kemela for recommended Ortofon cartridges with non-Ortofon tonearms.