Ortofon OM 5S Moving Magnet Cartridge

What Sets This Cartridge Apart From Other General-Purpose Options?

The OM 5S is a moving magnet cartridge built for general-purpose vinyl playback rather than high-end or specialist applications. It's fitted with a spherical stylus tip of 18 µm radius, a shape that stays robust across worn or heavily played grooves and remains economical to replace, so the OM 5S suits buyers who don't want to worry about a fragile or costly stylus. Output voltage reaches 4.5 mV at 1 kHz, giving a strong signal into a standard phono input, and frequency response spans 20 Hz to 20 kHz within 3 dB, covering the full audible range needed for record replay.

Is the Ortofon OM 5S Compatible With Your Tonearm and Phono Preamp?

The OM 5S is designed to mount on both top-mount and bottom-mount headshells, so the same cartridge body works with standard tonearms and with lower-mass tonearm designs. A small removable weight-plate sits at the top of the mounting bracket: leave it fitted for a standard tonearm, where the OM 5S weighs 5 g including the plate, or remove it for a low-mass tonearm, bringing the cartridge down to 2.5 g so the combined arm-and-cartridge mass stays within that tonearm's working range. Electrically, the OM 5S calls for a 47 kOhm load resistance and 200–500 pF load capacitance — values most phono stages and preamps offer as standard, so you won't usually need extra matching components to run it.

How Do You Set the Tracking Force and Alignment?

The OM 5S is set to a recommended tracking force of 1.75–1.8 g, within a working range of 1.5–2.0 g, and it tracks at a 20° angle to match standard tonearm geometry. Tracking ability at 315 Hz, measured at the recommended force, reaches 60 µm, which shows how far the stylus can follow high-amplitude groove modulation before it mistracks; keeping the force within the recommended range preserves this figure and reduces unnecessary wear on both stylus and record surface.

Who Is This Cartridge Suited To?

The OM 5S is suited to owners who want an affordable, low-maintenance entry into vinyl playback, or a dependable replacement cartridge for an existing turntable, rather than a short-term stylus-wear item. It ships with the Stylus S as its native stylus, and Ortofon builds wide styli interchangeability into the OM 5 range on top of that: upgrade styli include 3E, 5E, 10, 20, 30, 40, 78, and D25M, all fitting the same mounting bracket. This means a buyer who later wants sharper tracking doesn't have to replace the whole cartridge — they can swap in one of these upgrade styli instead, spreading the cost of moving to a higher-performance tip over time rather than paying for it upfront.

What Does the Body Construction Mean for Long-Term Use?

The OM 5S is built with a body manufactured from Noryl, a plastic and glass compound chosen for its light weight combined with high rigidity. This rigidity limits how much the body itself flexes or resonates during playback, which matters because any resonance in the cartridge body can colour the signal reaching the stylus independently of the groove information — a stiffer, lighter body doesn't let the cartridge's own mass and flex creep into the signal path.

How Does the Ortofon OM 5S Compare With the OM 5E and Super OM 5E?

The OM 5S is the entry point within the OM 5 series, sitting below the OM 5E and Super OM 5E, both of which use an elliptical rather than a spherical stylus. An elliptical tip follows groove oscillations with a more contoured contact area than a spherical tip, improving tracking accuracy and lowering distortion, so buyers who prioritise tracking precision over initial cost should compare the OM 5E instead. The Super OM 5E goes further with split pole pins in its internal engine, extending frequency response to 22 kHz and reducing magnetic losses at high frequencies, alongside a higher internal impedance of 1 kOhm and 580 mH inductance against the 750 Ohm and 450 mH shared by the OM 5S and OM 5E; buyers building a system around wider bandwidth and finer channel separation should weigh the Super OM 5E's 22 dB (1 kHz) and 15 dB (15 kHz) separation figures against the OM 5S's 20 dB and 12 dB. If you mainly want reliable, economical playback with the option to upgrade the stylus later without changing cartridge, the OM 5S remains the starting point in the range.