Kuzma/Koetsu feedbak??

While your Archiv cartridge may be a bit long in the tooth, my recommendation is to start by mounting that cartridge on your new arm/’table. It will help you assess the direction your new arm/’table is taking you.

Your desire for a Koetsu may be based on the attributes of your current arm and turntable. It may have no relevance to your new rig.

I say this as someone who sells and respects Koetsu (along with Ortofon, Lyra and Dynavector), but my advice to all of my customers is for them to try to get a handle on their new rig before "tailoring" it with a cartridge selection.

At the end of the day, a Koetsu may still make the most sense for you, but taking it slowly and systematically is never a bad thing.

You’ll find a Kuzma/Kuzma rig to be considerably less "excitable" than an LP12/Ekos setup and what you think might require some "sweetening" with a Koetsu may not be required with your new front end.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design

Hi @fjn04

It befuddles me that the Kuzma tables have not caught on in the US, in the way the Kuzma tonearms have. Not sure if I could venture as to why, but that’s all for another conversation.

I share your befuddlement. I suspect it’s a cosmetic thing. A lot of audiophiles buy with their eyes.

Kuzma makes very fine turntables and if I didn’t manufacture ’tables, it’s what I’d own.

I’ve been trying to develop a turntable in the $9K range, but US manufacturing prices put me at a serious disadvantage (compared with those of Eastern Europe).

I’ve fairly well concluded that while I can compete with anyone at a higher price point, I don’t see the point in trying to develop a $9K turntable.

I’m giving serious thought to integrating one of the Stabi R’s (or Stabi Reference) into the Galibier lineup.

This may seem odd for a turntable manufacturer, but with a direct sales model, my primary goal is to best fulfill my customers’ requirements and I think I’m hitting my head against the wall in trying to design a $9k turntable to compete with the Stabi R.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design

@2channel8

where is your shop? You sound like a most ethical dealer!

Thanks for the kind words. We’re in Colorado, a bit North of Denver.
@orenstein -

The Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum cartridge comes highly recommended by Danny Labrecque, co-owner and designer of Luna cables, who has been in the high end audio business most of his adult life. He feels that the Stabi XL DC with the 4 Point 14" arm and the Aforementioned cartridge would be a perfect match

I felt a bit uncomfortable in commenting the way I did. I was hoping that you could use your current cartridge as a baseline - to guide you toward your next cartridge purchase, but obviously this isn’t possible.

I think you know that I wasn’t trying to steer you away from the Koetsu, as it is a lovely cartridge and the Kuzma really takes control of it. That’s the reason I mentioned that I carry it, so you didn’t think I was trying to steer you away from it (toward something I carry).

It sounds as if Danny has worked with you at length and he’s trying to compliment the attributes of your Naimm electronics. Good on him!

At the end of the day, the best place in to tune your analog chain is at the cartridge, and it sounds as if Danny is steering you in the right direction.

Is there anyplace in the NY Metro area where they are featured

We’re pretty small fish and we sell direct to our customers, but we’ve been known to fly folks out to Colorado for auditions.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design

HI @whart,

... have you ever talked with Franc? He’s pretty accessible (as you are) and might be able to work with you in a joint development

Thanks for the suggestion. It hadn’t occurred to me to talk with him, although back in October, I started to discuss the concept with another highly regarded Eastern European manufacturer.

The challenges of walking through (reviewing) designs when the two of you are in the same room is significant, and when you’re located on opposite shores of an ocean, it’s exponentially more so.

Knowing two manufacturers whose idea of quality matches your own is never a bad thing (don’t get me started about a former partner), as one of the key challenges to maintaining quality can only be mitigated by having someone on location whom you can trust.

Galibier is a labor of love for me, and if I had to (for example) spend a couple months a year in Europe, it would fit into my lifestyle nicely ;-)

I’ve arrived at the opinion that there are a limited number of ways to work into more affordable price tiers. One of them is to be large and vertically integrated (where you own your own machine shop) and the other is to take advantage the currency game and and work in Eastern Europe or Asia. For me, the skiing is better in Europe and as luck would have it, I know more people over there :-)

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design