Getting The Most Out Of A Koetsu Urushi

@quincy 

The Liberty offers 64 dB gain in MC mode, with load settings of 100/220/330/500. Until now the 100 and 220 settings have been just fine for all my previous cartridges, which have ranged from Ortofon Winfeld, ZYX 4D, Shelter 501, Transfiguration Spirit III, and a couple of others. 

The Musical Fidelity Nu Vista M3 internal phono stage is set at 47K loading, even on the MC side. Output is 70 dB. Now the top end of the Urushi is the most open sounding on the Nu Vista, it seems that the 500 ohm load in the Liberty is too low for the cartridge. Truth is I never owned a cartridge that required this high a load, although the Koetsu literature provides such a wide range on load recommendation, 80 to 1000 ohms, to be of little use. 

So my thoughts are that a SUT is going to be needed to move this project forward. Looks like a 1:20 or 1:25 ratio transformer is going to be needed. Since I will also be changing out the tone arm cable on the GST 801, I would prefer to spend my money wisely, and get value for the dollar spent. 

What I hear from the Urushi is a very enticing mid band, and expansive presentation of space. Bass response if adequate, but not as authoritative as the Winfeld. I just need the top end to open up and be a bit more present, at the moment the sound is quite reticent. 

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has chosen to participate in this thread. I appreciate all your comments and insights. Every single one of them has given me a bit of perspective, and things to think about.

I may be rehashing a few things, but this is worth mentioning. In the past, almost every cartridge I owned worked well on phono stages that were designed for LOMC, and with on board load settings. Now there was a bit of time where I owned a rebuilt Denon 103M, which had a wickedly low output due to its non ferrous magnet structure, something along the lines of .11 mV. Now the Liberty could not deal with that kind of low input voltage, so I ran a SUT with Cinemag transformers, wired at a 1:16 or 18 load as I recall. Don’t quote me on that though, working from memory. The Denon came alive with the SUT in the front end, while my other cartridges showed minimal or no improvement when compared to running off the MC settings of the phono stage. That is my only direct experience with a SUT/MC combo, as I always bought phono stages capable of running LOMC cartridges, and the cartridges I have owned always seem to be best suited for that kind of component. So my understanding of load relationship between SUT versus an active phono stage is sketchy at best. And there are proponents of SUT who feel this is always the best, and yet others who feel that the transformers are inferior to an active circuit. Like anything in audio, there is no consensus.

This thread is getting bogged down in loading, and that certainly is an important subject. But the larger scope of the question I am trying to get at consists of "Is the table/arm/phono stage I am using a good way to go about setting up a Urushi?" I try to keep my system down to two tables, as I only run one system. In the past I have owned tables from Well Tempered, Teres, Townshend, Galibier, VPI, Thorens, Garrard, and one or two others. After an extended bout with refurbished idlers, to my surprise I discovered that I like those big studio era direct drive tables. So I currently own a Denon DP 75 with VPI plinth, and Acos GST 801 arm. The other table being a Technics SP 10 MK II in a multi density custom plinth, and Riggle 12" String Theory arm. My feeling is that the Denon/Acos combo should be adequate for the Urushi. So these are my thoughts:

The Urushi goes on the Denon/Acos.

The Acos tone arm cable is a bit of an unknown as I am not first owner of the table, heck its from 1980ish. So the tone arm cable gets replaced with an Analysis Plus Silver Oval.

The question then becomes which phono stage to use. The choice would probably be the Liberty as it is the superior of the two versus the internal one in the NuVista. But with the load settings available of 100/220/330/500/47K am I better off running a SUT? At the very worst a SUT could be transferred to the MF phono stage and run into its MM configuration for the second table.

Of course one question that has to be asked is alignment/VTF/VTA, and how good my skills are. I set up all my cartridges, and have passable skills, and believe I do a respectable job. Also the question of this Urushi has to be asked. It came from a reputable seller, the cartridge was serviced by VDH and has his label. But is a VDH serviced Urushi really representative of what the cartridge should be?

Now my funds are somewhat limited, and I do the best I can with my audio gear. Perhaps I am past my level of associated equipment with this cartridge. Perhaps I cannot do it justice. If so I need to come to terms with that and decide what a course of action is. I currently own a ZYX 4D, Ortofon Winfeld, and Denon 304. The Denon was supposed to be my beater cartridge, but it sounds far better then it has any right to. So the question of what steps to take to get down the path of analog bliss and have a long term relationship with the Urushi is ultimately what I am inquiring about. Thanks again for taking the time to read this, and I appreciate everyone’s insights.

@lewm
Thank you for the response, it is appreciated. If the cartridge is minimally affected by loading, then there is very little to do to the system as far as getting it optimized. I can load it at 100K, 500K, and if memory serves there is a way to get to 47K on the Liberty. That would be interesting to do in order to make a 1 to 1 comparison against the internal stage of the MF NuVista.

As far as the Liberty goes, there is not a separate input for MM and MC, but rather internal jumpers that need to be made up to engage any particular setting. Not unlike a motherboard on a computer. Gain in MM is 44 dB, and in MC it is 64 dB. The history behind Liberty is that it is the factory direct offering of Peter Noerbeck of PBN Audio, and uses a more basic offering of his circuit that is found in his Olympia phono stages.

So, given the line of reasoning you put forth, my first step should be to change out the tone arm cabling on the Acos and see what the result is.

As far as effective mass of the GST 801, that is a number I have yet to come up with. I have the original owners manual and box for mine as I was able to source it NOS, and that information is not in there. Neither is it in Vinyl Engine, or any other site I can find. I do use the LP Gear Zupreme head shell with this cartridge, as it is 12 grams. The arm pipe is stainless steel, overall length is 337 mm, and there is an internal flexible tube for resonance control of the arm tube and shielding of the tone arm wire. The tone arm wire is silver. The GST 801 was the top offering from Acos, and given its time frame I would make the educated guess it is intended to be used with low compliance moving coils from the 80's era, which almost all of them had pretty stiff suspensions. 

Perhaps that is all that is required. If that does not provide the net results, then perhaps I am not a Koetsu kind of guy.

Well the first step was to order a tone arm cable for the Acos, and make sure everything is up to snuff that way. Have an Analysis Plus Silver Apex cable coming. Apparently they just released it as a phono cable, and the website is not updated for that product, although they have the standard interconnects listed. 

We will see how that works out, then we will decide if a SUT is going to be worth exploring or not. 

@handymann 
That is the word about the Urushi. But then it seems Koetsu owners can use them on a SME V with excellent results. And that arm is 10/11 grams in mass. Decidedly in the medium mass camp, right there with a Rega 303. The Zupreme head shell i use on the Acos has more mass than a V. So that must not be an over riding factor in getting the cartridge to perform properly, although having it on a 5 gram arm could certainly be an issue. 

Oh sure I understand what you are saying Lew.

The first step in the process is getting the Analysis Plus Apex phono interconnect installed, and making sure there is not a bottleneck there. Then we will evaluate.

I did pick up a used SUT for a modest price, made with Lundahl 9206 transformers. Ideally this works on the Musical Fidelity internal phono stage when set to MM position, and should pair well with the Denon DL 304. The MF/304 combo is for casual vinyl listening, when I want to spin my Culture Club and Wang Chung records!

The Urushi has an internal impedance of 5 ohms, as does the Winfeld, and the ZYX 4D is 4 ohms. This means if I find a SUT for lower internal impedance cartridges, it should work well with all 3 of these, and that has some value to me. So we will experiment with the Lundahl based SUT, and if the results are positive I can consider investing some money for the other 3 cartridges.

Its all a grand experiment! In the end, I might be content with  the Urushi going direct into the Liberty. I am happy with the other two cartridges that way. I need to delve into the manual again and see how it can be set up for 47K , and get a baseline of hearing it that way. 

The Analysis Plus Silver Apex is due to deliver today. With that bit of the puzzle in place, I can then decide if I need to progress a bit further in terms of optimizing other parts of the analog chain for this cartridge.