Koetsu cartridges. They must be something special.

I was aware of Koetsu in 1978 through The Audio Critic, who tested one. It was the world's first cartridge to sell for - gasp! - $1000. Peter Aczel said it was the best he'd ever heard. Don't give me that bullsh*t about inflation making that $1K Koetsu worth $4K in today's dollars. There is so little material in any phono cartridge to justify the outrageous prices asked today!

@lewm : Guitar pickups and strings determine the sound of an electric guitar. The body material/shape have no affect. The magnet material and number of coil windings is where the "magic" resides.

@inna 

i recently got an Analog Relax cartridge—manufacturer reportedly used to work for Koetsu. Its midrange is even more immediate than my Blue Lace. Bass is pronounced too. Only problem is it’s a prototype and doesn’t have the excellent tracking noted in reviews of the EX1000. 

Etsuro Urushi..good to know.

No one forces anyone to buy luxury items. Unlike some other things. I have to pay outrageous electrical bills every month, as an example. Now this is hard to walk around, especially if renting. There is a number of people paying $10k+ for cartridges, and custom Brioni suit was about $30k the last time I read about it.

Jason, I just read the long piece on "pickups" in Wikipedia.  Seems there are a few different types and they operate in a few different ways, any set of which could affect the recorded signal in one way or another.  So I would guess it is about as difficult to say what the type of magnet does to the sound from a pickup as it is to say how the magnetic material of a phono cartridge affects its sound.  I am not saying there is no effect; I am only wondering how one would know or how to investigate that effect as an isolated factor.