The Rosewood was always thought to be a very warm sounding cartridge with not so great extreme low bass or upper treble. This is just to quote the typical critique of it back in the 80s and 90s, not based on personal experience. So perhaps it is not your brand of "magic", Koetsu or other. The Signature version that followed was said to be better at frequency extremes.
Assistance Needed to Identify an Older Koetsu
I have a Koetsu Rosewood "R" phono cartridge. I bought it used on ebay a few years ago. It is a very good sounding cartridge, but I've never experienced the Koetsu "Magic" with it. Perhaps this magic doesn't exist??? I'm comparing it to the Hana ML and the Shelter 901 cartridges that I know very well. It came in an wooden box that looks just like the images I see online. Inside the box is a small square of folded paper. It has the Model (Rosewood "R") and serial number. The paper folds out to 4 sections which have mounting instructions, Warranty info and an address for the US Koetsu distrubutor at the time " Koetsu, USA, Inc 712 South Military Trail, Deerfield Beach, Forida 33442". This address exists today. It is in a typical looking US industrial park.
The seller was reselling and had no info at all about the age. He noted that he sent it to Soundsmith for evaluation. SS called it a "nearly new Koetsu".
Serial number is 12978. The mounting plate is black with no metal rings around the mounting holes. The plate has the name and serial number on it. The body has a sloping back (tonearm pivot side) which looks like the modern Koetsu Rosewood. There is a cowling above the cantilever. As far as I can tell, it looks like it has never been re-tipped.
I asked the US Koetsu rep. He was unsure, but placed it in the 1980s, making this an earlier effort by Koetsu. I have searched online, but found a lot of conflicting info and no consensus.
How can I verify that this cartridge is authentic? I wish I could upload photos. How do I do that in this forum? I have several photos of what I've described above.
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