koetsu rosewood signature vs. Blue urushi

I have actually heard both side by side and to be honest, I couldn't hear the difference. I currently own the Rosewood Signature, and the Rosewood Signature Platinum. A close friend who lives nearby has the blue urishi. I just sold the vermillion urishi. I liked the vermillion a tad better than the Rosewood Signature and I like the RSP better than the Urishi. The RSP, the ZU 103R and the Shilabe are my current favorites. Short answer is that you can't go wrong with either. If you are getting them new. I would go for the Rosewood Signature and save the difference.

For me, it made a difference, but not a significant one. I believe the difference can be attributed to the platinum magnets. The midrange was a tad better defined, but it is hard to justify the difference in cost. I could only tell the difference with a-b testing. I think if someone switched out the cartridge without me knowing, I would probably not notice it.

Yes, if you are buying it new. You will be pleased with it. But that is just for the Koetsu. There are a lot of other cartridges out there that are great and sell for less. For me, it is an adventure. I have lots of different cartridges. My current keepers are the Miyajima Shilabe, the Koetsu RSP, the Koetsu RS, the ZU-DL103R, the Denon 103R, The Shelter 901, the Accuphase AC-2, the Adcom Crosscoil SXC-VDH, The Dynavector Ruby Karat, and the Supex SD-900 MK-IV. I have heard lots of others. They all sound a bit different, but are all enjoyable. A lot has to do with the proper matching of the cartridge with the phono preamp, SUT, and tonearm combination. You can easily have a cartridge that on one setup sounds great and on another sounds not very good. That is why reviews are so hard. If you switch out just the cartridge, then you are comparing which cartridge sounds better in your system. That will be different for each system. The best reviews are when they compare a complete setup. There are a lot of biases on cartridges (or anything else) based on what they are matched with.

Hard to believe but I can't decide which I like better. There is no cartridge I have heard that compares with the midrange of the Koetsu. The Shilabe comes close but excels in the low and high frequency range. So, I have both currently mounted on different tonearms (both on JMW 12.7i arms) and I have been switching back and forth, depending on how I feel. Right now, the RSP is playing and there is no reason to switch it out. But I feel the same way when the Shilabe is playing.