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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 2 responses by viridian

viridian's avatar
viridian
5,178 posts
 

I have a vintage, low use, Purpleheart Sapphire in my collection that is a marvelous cartridge. The Blackheart should be better, or maybe just a different flavor.

Interesting that the Blackheart is low impedance at 6 ohms, and the Purpleheart is 42 ohms. Would certainly guide transformer selection with these models. I use 10:1 with the PS.

Kiseki was started by Herman Van Dungen, who now owns Primaluna. He was the distributor of Koetsu, but could not get enough cartridges to fulfill his orders, so decided to build his own, similar line of cartridges. Rumor has it that Dynavector was the original OEM, but that is hearsay.

viridian's avatar
viridian
5,178 posts
 

Excel makes sense, I too wish that we could know more as well. I don't trust anything on the Kiseki page as Mr. Van Dungen promoted the myth that the cartridges were the work of the fictional character Goro Focadu and that the diamonds were polished with human hair.

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