Ortofon VMS-20E (1974–c. 1981)
A $65 cartridge that Ortofon's own advertising claimed could match the M-15E Super - and a period reviewer who owned both agreed he couldn't hear the difference.
Overview
The Ortofon VMS-20E sold for sixty-five dollars, and it was a deliberate answer to a simple problem. The company's M-15E Super had a reputation among serious listeners, but it was demanding and wanted a tonearm that could track at a single gram. Plenty of good turntables couldn't reliably manage that, particularly the automatics that filled mid-1970s living rooms. The VMS-20E was Ortofon's attempt at the same performance in a cartridge that would behave in a wider range of arms. The company's advertising leaned hard on this, and just as hard on a quote from Julian Hirsch of Stereo Review. He reportedly found virtually identical performance and could hear no difference between the two in side-by-side comparisons. Hirsch did note one practical distinction: the M-15E Super would track anything he'd seen on record at 1 gram, while the VMS-20E might need 1.5 grams in the most severe cases.
The technical hook is Ortofon's Variable Magnetic Shunt design, a patented arrangement in which the stylus doesn't have to drive either coils or a magnet directly. According to Ortofon, that gives very low dynamic mass - 0.5 milligram - and very high compliance, quoted at 40 x 10⁻⁶ cm/dyne in the horizontal plane. That's a light, compliant generator that should follow a groove without fighting it. It's the same quality behind the M-15E Super's reputation, and the reason Ortofon could plausibly claim parity.
The stylus is an elliptical diamond. High Fidelity (September 1975, p.40) measured frequency response at ½ dB, 20 Hz to 10 kHz on the left channel, with +7½, −½ dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The right channel came in at −1¼, −¾. That's a flat result for the money. The same review listed a one-year parts-and-labor warranty, with servicing handled at Ortofon's New York headquarters and shipping paid one way.
HiFi-Stereo (December 1974, p.22) covered the VMS-20E in its new-products column when the cartridge was introduced, describing the magnetic phono cartridge's construction and noting a vertical tracking angle of 20 degrees and a vertical compliance of 30 x 10⁻⁶ — a figure that differs from the horizontal compliance Ortofon quoted, as vertical and horizontal compliance commonly do. The same publication ran a full frequency-response plot of the VMS 20E in its February 1975 issue (p.42), the kind of lab treatment a cartridge only gets when a magazine considers it significant.
By the end of the decade the design had been through at least one revision. Studio Sound (May 1979, p.50) lists a VMS20E MkII among Ortofon's variable-magnetic-shunt cartridges. It has an 8 x 18 micron elliptical stylus tracking 1 to 1½ grams, response from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, output of 5 mV, channel separation of 25 dB, an optimum load of 47kΩ/400pF, and a weight of 5 grams. UK pricing at the time was £35.11 for the complete cartridge and £23.56 for a replacement stylus. The May 1981 Studio Sound survey (p.52) still lists the MkII at the same £35.11/£23.56, now with a slightly wider tracking range of 0.75 to 1.5 grams. The cartridge also turns up as original equipment on the Revox B790 linear-tracking turntable, which Studio Sound (May 1979, p.52) priced at £385 with the VMS20E fitted. So the VMS-20E was chosen by a manufacturer building one of the more fastidious turntables of the period.
Owners report that the Variable Magnetic Shunt generator is the heart of the thing, and it also dictates how the cartridge should be treated. The high compliance that suits the VMS-20E to a suitable arm makes it a poor match for heavy, high-mass tonearms - the very arms the M-15E Super was built to tame. Matching matters more than the spec sheet suggests. So does the 47kΩ/400pF loading figure. Ortofon later offered a small capacitor that clipped onto the terminal pins and added 210pF to the load, a workaround for users whose preamps didn't present the ideal capacitance. Whether that accessory was intended for the VMS-20E specifically or the broader line is not clear from the available documentation.
Collectors note that the VMS-20E sits in an odd spot in the Ortofon catalog. It isn't as famous as the M-15E Super it was built to emulate, and it isn't as exalted as the moving-coil MC series, but it's a capable moving-magnet that sold in numbers and earned loyal users. Original styli are the practical concern, and replacement styli for a design this old are the usual hunt. Prices for complete cartridges and styli vary widely with condition, and buyers should expect to inspect the stylus under magnification before committing. The MkII revisions complicate things further. Owners should confirm which version they have, since tracking-force recommendations shifted between the 1979 and 1981 listings.
The honest summary: the VMS-20E is a cartridge that asked to be judged against a more expensive sibling and, by at least one respected reviewer's ear, held its own. It rewards a light, compatible arm and sensible loading, and it punishes careless matching. For a collector building a period system around a 1970s turntable, it's a sensible, historically appropriate choice — provided the stylus is sound and the arm is in its weight class.
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