Fuuga vs Miyajima


To be paired with the Schroeder Reference on a Bardo.
Question is, can anyone compare the Fuuga to the Miyajima cartridges, especially the Shilabe, Kansui, or Madake? I want the Fuuga, but it’s freakin’ $9k...
maxgh
Don't spend $9K! Unless you've just made a killing in the stock market! The lower-priced Miyajima's are perfectly fine sounding cartridges!
Do you know the length or effective mass of your particular Schröder Ref? I have two different SQ examples of this arm, and the shorter of the two (253mm effective length) with its 'swamp-oak' armwand, did not seem to have sufficient effective mass to be fully compatible with the low compliance of the Shilabe (though the heavier/longer arm had no such trouble). On a few tracks that have extremely intense sub-bass the cartridge would fail to track and actually jump out of the groove from resonance. To be clear, this was only on a few extremely intense LF torture tracks. That said, with most music the combination sounded terrific, and the arm mates beautifully with no issues whatsoever with the Kansui and Madake- I assume due to their slightly higher compliance. I don't have any experience with the Fuuga, so can't shed any light there. I hope this is of some help to you.
Very helpful, thanks.
I don't yet know the length or effective mass of the arm, I am planning on having OMA (link below) build it to the specifications of whichever cartridge I end up with. It's looking like the Kansui.

https://oswaldsmillaudio.com/schroder_reference

Just surprised at how few have commented generally on the Fuuga.

@maxgh A very interesting boutique company. I did note however that they state their products are made by hand in Pennsylvania; yet the tone arm is made entirely by Mr. Frank Schröder himself, in Berlin, Germany.

The webpage perhaps needs to be updated or corrected for accuracy.

The tonearms look a million bucks though. Real quality there. Actually the whole product range is a bit esoteric, quirky but full of quality and performance. I see what you see.

@amg56 OMA is not only a manufacturer of their own speakers,amps,plinth.., but also the distributor of various nice brands. I've bought my Schick "12 arm from them and some SPU cartridge many years ago.