Phono stage match for Koetsu

The impedance of the Koetsu is pretty low at 5 Ohm so that it should at least electrically match the Shindo preamps (Monbrison, Massetto) which feature a MC input designed for low impedance cartridges. The best people to talk to are Matt at Pitchperfect Audio, Don at Don Better Audio or Jonathan of Tone Imports.

Of course you can always add an external step-up (e.g. Auditorium 23) to any Shindo preamp to allow for a large variety of cartridges. Even a Shindo Aurieges MM with external Cinemag step-ups would be an excellent combo if you are looking at more affordable full function preamps.

In fact, at this level I would always look at matching a high quality step-up to a cartridge first and then running this into a tube MM phono stage.

I agree with the last suggestion, the Pass XOno should be a excellent match to the Koetsu as well. I have been running the XOno with an Allaerts which has some similar characteristics and it is a perfect balance of lushness, detail, texture and dynamics.

I think the XOno is quite underrated in the Forums here and performs much better than the $2k used prices suggest. I did prefer the Pass over several other phono stages (Sutherland Ph.D., Gram Slee, Rossner & Sohn Canofer S, Audio Research PH3SE, Aesthetics Rhea, EAR 834 Deluxe)