Koetsu cartridges. They must be something special.

@Lewm wrote: " "It seems that quite a number of Audiogoners have Koetsu, or a few of them." That sentence has its own escape clause."

I read Inna's statement to mean that Koetsu are popular among participants and some have several of them. 

I own two stones- a Jade- which sounded great out of the box, and a Tiger Eye, which was a bit strident for the first thirty or so hours. Both a tad tail down (I can do VTA on the fly but don't mess with it much once dialed in, except for an extraordinarily thick or thin record- most of what I listen to is pretty standard old pressings from the nadir of vinyl- the '70s) and loaded at 100 ohms. The bass has dimension, tone and a filled-in quality that my system seemed to lack with other high end cartridges. It may be a synergy with the arm- an Airline, which really seems to like a low compliance cartridge. 

One observation for which I don't have an answer- the Jade sounds different than the Tiger Eye on the same system. From what I gather the innards of both cartridges are the same. The difference in the hardness of the stone is recognized, generally (you can look it up under the Moh Scale for each). I don't know how much that contributes-- neither stone absorbs resonance in the same way that something like wood would; and there was the myth that the better motor assemblies were reserved for the upper tier Koetsu but I think its just that, a myth. 

I will probably try Ana Mighty in France when I'm due for a retip; I gather they had some history with Koetsu back in the day. Those Medialux articles posted upstream are a pretty good introduction to the product line; sadly, the company is no more, though I understand why the family opted not to "sell the brand" to a 3rd party-- it would not have been the same.