2. analog
  3. 193223-3976

Installed A Kiseki Black Heart Today. Lovely Cartridge

Last year I sent off a Kiseki Black Heart to Allclear Audio for a new diamond. I checked it briefly when it returned, and set it aside. During the fall I also located a lovely first generation Sota Sapphire turntable. I also acquired a low mass version of the Audiomods Series Six tonearm for this table. I had a Sota Cosmos arm board that was cut for a SME arm, and was able to repurpose it for this installation. I put it all together and ran my Ortofon MC2000 on it. 

This afternoon I thought it would be interesting to install the Black Heart. So I put it on and finished the alignment. These long body designs where the cantilever is hidden underneath the body are truly a pain to align, but it is amazing what you can do with an iPhone these days. 

I finished the install and hooked the table back up to a Musical Fidelity NuVista Vinyl phono stage. The sound is warm, textured, layered, and utterly captivating. Allclear did a great job replacing the diamond as this cartridge is utterly silent in the groove. I am playing Seasons by Gabriel Lee at the moment and it sounds just lovely. 

What amazes me is how a cartridge of this vintage sounds so fine. The Black Heart was released in the late 1980's and had a price tag of $2400 it seems. I did find a review in a print magazine an internet acquaintance sent me about an Absolute Sound review for the cartridge, and apparently the reviewer liked is better than the TOTL Lapis Lazuli, which sold for around $5000 at that time. I have no idea if that is true, as it seems so few of that cartridge were produced and are probably in the hands of the most ardent collectors now. 

 

I like to believe cartridge technology marches on. With improved materials, more sophisticated engineering, and precision engineering techniques...well...today's cartridges should be better. But with listening to the Black Heart, some doubts can be raised. Now this is not a colorless and utterly transparent cartridge. The Black Heart seems to be shaded to the romantic side of music, but not in a way that gloms over the beauty of the music. In the past I had read where the goal of the original Kiseki was to out Koetsu Koetsu. You can see that play out I suppose. 

All I know is that the Black Heart is a fine cartridge. It makes me wonder what the earlier Gold and Silverspot cartridges were like. Of course there are a few versions of the Purpleheart. But I wonder if any are worth seeking out, or if the Black Heart is innately superior to them. 

All I can say is these cartridges are worth seeking out and refurbishing. 

neonknight

Showing 1 response by mulveling

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
2,124 posts
 

What amazes me is how a cartridge of this vintage sounds so fine.

The motor generator of most MC cartridges uses the same core classic design used by the first SPUs in the 1950s. There are some different motor designs out there (including by Ortofon), but mostly these are just different, rather than better.

Of course implementation details and parts selections can drastically change the "voice" of the cartidge, but it’s far from a direct correlation between expensive / modern matrials and "better" sound quality. In fact, the past seems to have had access to some of the more exotic parts, such as beryllium cantilevers and boron pipe - which I guess went extinct when the R&D money for vinyl dried up.

And SPUs still sound great today! And Koetsus (both vintage and modern), etc...

No surprise at all that a well preserved vintage high-end MC can sound amazing!

Secondly, I have seen some shoddy epoxy jobs where a Soundsmith technician attached a ruby cantilever. I once bought a Shinnon Red from a seller that had a poor retip done, it was from Soundsmith. 

Hard from me to tell from afar, from pics - but yeah, from what I've seen SS is an absolute NOPE for me when it comes time to service a Koetsu. Van den Hul too - seen some really wild Koetsu retips from there. 

More to discover