I have no direct experience with the Ortofon cartridge. I have however have been accumulating very enjoyable hours on the Maestro Wood.
I know Clearaudio invested much time into studying the groove walls of many, many LPs to come up with a stylus shape that is optimal, hence the "Trygon 2" stylus used on the Maestro Wood as well as their much more expensive cartridges. The Ortofon brand has been around for a long time and haven't exactly been asleep at the wheel all these years either. The "naked Shibata" stylus of the Ortofon also has its followers.
I really can't compare the Maestro to anything else directly, other than hearing other vinyl rigs in other systems with different cartridges. I'd say that overall and it is kind of hard to say for sure, the Maestro does not seem to excel at
micro-dynamics as some MC variety of carts but not bad and it does do excellent
macro-dynamics though.
It has an overall tonal balance that tilts slightly to the warmer side of neutral and it is a well balanced cartridge and does all genres of music rather well. You can listen to wide variety of music with it and it simply chugs along pulling some seriously good music out of the grooves.
I find it a bit more forgiving over all than many other cartridges I've heard and many think it is a great "rock" cartridge. I have to say that if one is looking for a more "universal" cartridge to do many things well, this is the one.
It is also a fantastic tracker.
It is not a "technicolor" variety of carts, it does allow one to hear the difference in recording quality instantly but is a bit more forgiving on those lesser quality recordings. Overall I find the Maestro Wood to be very engaging, musical and enjoyable for very long listening sessions with a variety of music of various recording qualities.
It is not a cartridge which will dissect the music into little parts analyzing each aspect of it, instead it presents the listener with the "big picture" that comes across as a powerful and emotional swell of the "message" and "essence" of music buried in the grooves of a record. I really like it as my first cartridge.