Carts that sound like a Koetsu

You're right Dazzdax, it was a silly question. Trying for a sound you've never heard and know nothing about is risky and non-educational. Why hand off responsibility for your sonics (and your money) to the unexplored priorities of strangers?

All you know so far is that some people with unknown systems and unknown sonic priorities like something called the "Koetsu sound". That tells you nothing useful. I dislike the Koetsu sound, but that tells you nothing useful either. Unless you understand what the Koetsu sound is, you have no idea whether you'd like it or hate it.

Better to listen to more things (if you can) and develop an understanding of your own sonic priorities. Describe these and people who share them (or at least understand them) could provide meaningful guidance.

Not rainin' on your parade. Just trying to save you some aimless and possibly unnecessary purchases.

Doug

P.S. Stone body Koetsus and wood body Koetsus sound very different. One possible response to your, "What else sounds like a Koetsu?", would be, "Which Koetsu?". You begin to see the difficulty of this approach...

Nghiep,

I've compared the 901 and RSP, in two systems and on several arms (Graham 2.2, Basis Vector, Schroeder Ref, modded OL Silver, TriPlanar VII).

In general I liked the review Fretless posted, and I also agree with him that the 901 lacks the midrange "magic" of the RSP. For me that is a good thing, since I find the the RSP's midrange "magic" intolerable. OTOH, if that's the kind of thing you like, you'd like it very much!

The 901 has stronger bass, crisper highs and greater macrodynamics. On some arms it gets to the point of being edgy, which the RSP never does. OTOH, the 901 on a Schroeder Ref sings like a Koetsu, but without that rounding and gentling of transients that Koetsu lovers love. Until I got a ZYX that was perhaps the nicest cartridge/arm combo I'd heard.

How these two cartridges sound is very arm-dependent, especially the 901. Which one you'd prefer is very you-dependent.

Doug

Gregadd,

What can I say other than the old YMMV? We have heard rounded transients from multiple models in multiple systems. You haven't heard that. Music is mysterious. ;-)

It was wrong of me to ascribe that, or an enjoyment of it, to anyone else however. My apologies.

FWIW, "intolerable" was an accurate description of our reactions. I understand you may react differently.

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Cmk,

As already stated, we've heard this artifact from several models, on several arms, in several systems using several speakers. There is no reason to suspect it has anything to do with our system or our speakers. It may indeed have everything to do with our ears.

Doug

Raul,

I've heard the Urushi, the RSP and the Onyx Platinum, but not the RS.

When I had the RSP in my system I did use stepups, but Cello's two phono stages and my new one all use SS for the primary gain stage. The sonic character we've heard cannot be attributed to an SUT, nor to any particular phono stage.

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the Koetsus are not very friendly to match well with tonearm

I believe you. Many months ago you said you'd finally found one tonearm that works with your RSP, but I think this is the first time you've named it. Is the GST-801 a very high mass arm? I would expect that to work best.

BTW, a correspondent of Arthur Salvatore really likes his GST-801 + XV-1S. You should try your XV-1S on that arm if you haven't already done so.

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Raul or Cmk,
Do you remember what amp you heard driving B&W's that had boxy or impaired bass? I ask because we had that problem until we got our present amp, power cords and speaker cables. There are few amps in the world which compare with this one for driving these speakers, including the Classe amps B&W uses to voice them. In a direct A/B this amp sent a pair of Classe monoblocks home. It takes more than great speakers to make great speakers. ;-)

Doug

P.S. I'd love a set of 803D's with the simpler Xover, diamond tweeter and the new, lighter/stiffer woofer cones. Some day...

Thanks, guys. Excellent info.

Apologies to Dazzdax for the digressions.

Gregadd,

Very true. Our c-j preamp (tube) had alot of that rounded quality, on both leading edges and trailing ones. Typical c-j warmth. Pleasant, musical and never offensive, but not fully lifelike. It also lacked adequate power supplies, so our dynamic range wasn't up to snuff.

Our c-j amp was SS, so transient speed was less of an issue. It did have a little waveform edginess, that SS glare, but its single biggest problem was also inadequate power supplies.