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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 1 response by lewm

lewm
12,522 posts
 
Like the others, I suggest add mass to the WTR tonearm or get a higher effective  mass replacement. I recently ( this week) experienced an epiphany with my similarly low compliance Koetsu Urushi. I’ve owned it for about 10 years, used it in a few different medium mass tonearms, was never blown away by its SQ. Last week, in a last ditch effort to make it sing, I mounted it on my FR 64S on a Victor TT101 turntable. Using an 18g Ortofon headshell. Holy cow! I never would have believed the Urushi could ever live up to its expectations. But now it does indeed.
Also, I am familiar with the WTR tonearm in a negative sense of the term.
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