Ikeda 9 Cartridge Squeaking


This is an odd issue I have never been able to figure out the last few months. I have an Ikeda 9 Kawami cartridge on a Well Tempered Reference table, with the longer WTR arm. There are a few albums by Mark Isham on Windham Hill label that this cartridge has a high pitched squeak or rubbing sound in the groove. I can hear it and it drives me nuts! Yet on other albums such as George Winston on the same label there is none of this nonsense. 

Overhang is set by an arc protractor with spindle to pivot being 233 degrees. I have not found a factory listed number for this arm, but an owner of a Wally Tractor had one done for his table and reported the 233 mm number. I used an original Feikert and measured 230 mm from the first setting that the previous owner had it at when I obtained this table.  I cannot find a factory protractor for this table, and all the info from Stanalog or Transparent seems to be missing. I am tempted to pull the cartridge off this arm and put it on my Audiomods Series Six with a heavy cartridge plate and see what happens there. But I would prefer to keep the cartridge on this table, but for the life of me I am not sure what the issue is. 

There is nothing on the net regarding this phenomenon that I have found. Anyone experience this, or hear about it? Since the cartridge is similar to a London Decca design, perhaps an owner of those cartridges may have heard something?
neonknight

Showing 2 responses by edgewear

@neonknight, your picture looks the same as the one generally referred to as Kiwami.

Earlier discussions have suggested that the gold body Rex and Kiwami were identical and one of them was for export purposes. But if the correct tracking force of Kiwami is between 2.0 and 2.5 gram, than it must be different to Rex (1.5 gram per manual).

However, this brings to mind a similar situation with the Sato Musen Zen Diamond cartridge. There were two technically and cosmetically identical versions, perhaps also for export purposes. One has the word ’Zen’ and the other a Japanese character on the same spot. The only difference is the recommended tracking force......

I know this is highly speculative and probably too far fetched, but could there have been some East/West difference in playback practice that might explain this distinction?

@neonknight I use the gold coloured 9 Rex, which apparently is identical to your Kiwami. The spec sheet recommends 1.5 gram VTF, but it is by nature a very low compliance design. So it needs a high mass tonearm, just as chakster suggests. I tried it in several arms, but it sounds best in FR64s. The Ikeda arms will be a perfect match too, but I have no first hand experience with these.