Historical product

SPU Wood A

A perfect combination of Japanese and Danish craftsmanship and technique, the SPU Wood A is beautiful in finish and form, as well as in its sonic expression.

The SPU Wood A unique characteristics includes an outstanding housing made of Japanese Beech wood, famous for its strength and hardness. For the exclusive surface treatment, the 6000-year-old Japanese Urushi lacquer method was chosen in order to achieve a hard, resistant and beautiful multilayer surface in a dark maroon color.

The wooden housing has a strong influence resulting in a very pleasant, open, dynamic, straightforward, and present tone range characteristic for the SPU sound.

Perfect solution for the playback of stereo recordings

We offer the APJ-1 adaptor for SPU A-shell type cartridges. The APJ-1 adaptor extends SPU A-shell models to standard GM-length.

The SPU Wood A mounted on the APJ-1 adaptor ensures the ability to mount the cartridge in a wider range of tonearms with universal (SME) mount, e.g., Ortofon TA-110 and TA-210 tonearms.

The combination of SPU Wood A, ST-7 Moving Coil transformer and TA-110/TA-210 tonearms gives a supreme experience.

Read about the long history of SPU cartridges

Review quotes

Stereophile.com December 2018

By Art Dudley

A distinguished new member of a very fine family

"... the Ortofon SPU Wood A excelled at conveying instrumental and vocal colors and textures ... after break-in, it played music with an excellent and altogether natural-sounding sense of flow. That said, the Ortofon’s dynamic, impactful sound was there from the word go.

... Where the SPU (Wood A - red.) reigned supreme was in its ability to communicate nuances of musical performance and, in doing so, teased poetry from mere sound ...

...The orchestra’s sheer sense of sweep was also greatest with this generally large-sounding pickup, and the Wood A produced the most physical sounding timpani taps of any stereo pickup in the house ...

... I was impressed by the SPU’s ability to pull me into the performance and never falter in fostering the illusion that I was hearing human hands stopping and bowing those strings, and not a bumpy plastic valley being dragged past a subminiature rock ...

...The Wood A’s timbral balance was consistently lovely. Brass had bite, but not too much, and stringed instruments, fretted or bowed, were warm but not excessively so ...

The Wood A’s sound was tactile, dynamic, meaty, and colorful, with a great sense of scale. Notwithstanding its spherical stylus, the Wood A strikes me as the most accessible SPU I’ve heard ... its musical and sonic strengths were enough to satisfy any SPU connoisseur. A distinguished new member of a very fine family."

SPU Wood A technical data

Output voltage at 1000 Hz, 5cm/sec. - 0.18 mV
Channel balance at 1 kHz  - 1.5 dB
Channel separation at 1 kHz -  20 dB
Channel separation at 15 kHz -  10 dB
Frequency response - 20-25.000 Hz ±2 dB
Tracking ability at 315Hz at recommended tracking force *) - 70 µm
Compliance, dynamic, lateral - 10 µm/mN
Stylus type - Spherical
Stylus tip radius - R 18 µm
Tracking force range - 3.0-5.0 g (30-50 mN)
Tracking force, recommended - 4.0 g (40 mN)
Tracking angle - 20°
*) Typical value

Internal impedance, DC resistance - 2.5 ohm
Recommended load impedance > 10 ohm
Cartridge body material - Wood
Cartridge color - Dark maroon
Cartridge weight - 29 g

Download the SPU series datasheet
Download the SPU series brochure