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About Koetsu Rosewood

Hello,

I was given some days ago a Koetsu rosewood cartridge for a test run

in view to buy it for some 1500 usd.

It was the first time that I could hear such an expensive and highly regarded cartridge.

My system is Marantz sc-9 premp (with its very good mc and mm phono inputs) and Marantz sm-9 amplifier. The TT is a Sony TTS-2510.  (I like vintage)

 

I have also a Phasemation ea-200  phono unit which is very good.  And my LS are Cabasse Brigantin 372 (very very good ls which I am very fond of)

I could compare this Koetsu cartridge with some very good (but  much less expensive) cartridges in my collection such as (MC) sony xl-44L, at33ml, victor mc-1, and (MM)  Pioneer PC-600 and Victor X-1E.

Well, what can I say. I liked Koetsu very much. It is an excellent cartridge indeed. Even it can be called perfect sounding cartridge. I noticed well the difference between Koetsu and the other cartridges.

But all that said, I decided not to buy it. Because I did not find that with Koetsu my system would sound so much better. The test (for me) showed not that Koetsu was much better than the others, but than the others were if not equal (of course not) at least also very good and so much less expensive. In that sense the test was in their favour. I prefer to spent money on records J)

That is what I think.

 

Now, I took the photo of the Koetsu needle, and I would like to ask if it is an original needle or retipped but I did not find how to attach a photo to the message ;((( Could anybody tell me ?

 

Thank you very much

 

Serge

serge8

Showing 2 responses by lewm

lewm
13,514 posts
 

Spearmint has great highs and deep bass, sounds better than Peppermint. Two well chewed sticks should do it. A quick check says that a nickel weighs about 5g.  Neither a dime (unsurprisingly owing to its small size) nor a quarter weigh much more.  So you would need to fix two nickels to a headshell to increase effective mass by 10g, and 10g is the minimum needed to increase the EM of the Grace tonearms with which I am familiar sufficiently to mate well with a Koetsu. Even 15g would not hurt and might be better yet. (Maybe 3 sticks of Spearmint.)

lewm
13,514 posts
 

Serge, It would be a simple and very inexpensive matter to increase the effective mass of your Grace tonearm so as to better accommodate the Koetsu.  Just add about 10g or so of mass in any form, to the headshell.  If the added mass is on the headshell over approximately where the cantilever pivots, you have increased effective mass by 10g. I am using a wad of chewing gum on one of my tonearms.

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