If you are looking for a MC cartridge that unravels large amounts of transient, harmonic and spatial detail without being overly analytical and one that is "fast" without moving so fast it misses the textures, then the Ortofon Quintet is a great good choice to consider. It's especially neutral tonally, with a rich but not overly rich midrange component—contrary to the bad rap MC cartridges get in some quarters for being "thin and overly analytical". The Quintet is neither.
Its reproduction of the piano is particularly impressive capturing well the initial transient without metallic overlay, and the sounding board sustain and generous decay—all aided by excellent tracking and of course with the Shibata stylus tracing as well. I pulled out the Volto Incitare LP reviewed here recently and can confirm that the Quintet can do justice to edgy electric guitar transients and it was equally good on the drum kit's kick, snare and especially cymbals.
Interestingly, the Quintet shares the far more expensive Windfeld's tonal and textural superiority with its less than fully expressive macro dynamics. In my opinion I'm happy to give up some dynamic capabilities in exchange for near tonal perfection especially at $999.00. Just remember that with its .3mV output you need a quiet phono preamp capable of at least 53dB gain. Feeding an MC stage with those capabilities the Ortofon Quintet is an all around great performer for all musical genres. $999 is not chump change but if that's your budget and your phono preamp can do it justice and your tone arm's VTA/SRA is adjustable to optimize the Shibata stylus, the Quintet is recommended without reservation.
