ZEN cartridge ?
There are always auction battle for those good vintage cartridges. Regarding Victor I can say that MC-L10 is cheaper than MC-L1000. Anyway, whatever. It’s interesting that Zen cartridge body is just like Victor MC1 and L10. I have no idea how anyone could make a cartridge body look like Victor without Victor's permission. Maybe Victor was an OEM for Zen? Direct Coupled is JVC Victor’s patent. Who is Sato Musen then? |
Victor Direct Couple MC-1 cartride was introduced in 1977, then the MC-2E, MC-L10 (on my image) and finally MC-L1000 appeared on the market in Japan. The coil of the MC-1 is printed micro-coil made by IC lithography process, and sitting near the stylus! They are all quite nice sounding cartridges in my opinion. From my conversation with J.Carr (designer of Lyra carts) I’ve learned that while the MC-L1000 was certainly the most extreme of the range, that is not necessarily the same thing as musical enjoyment, many listeners would probably consider the MC-L10 to be better balanced, less merciless, and more musically enjoyable. |
Like Takeda San when he was OEM for Levinson, Cello, Krell, MoFi and 47Labs before setting up his own Miyabi brand. 47Labs was last destination of Takeda-San, he retired then. Miyabi was before 47Labs, luckily I managed to get Standard and MCA models. JVC Victor may have been a large corporation at the time, but it was not particularly known for phono cartridges. I think they made millions of MM cartridges (maybe less MC) and Shibata stylus was their patent. Here is a list of Victor products. Construction of the MC1 printed coil is here. Construction of MC-L10 coil is here. And BTW what Audio-Technica made in 21st century ( ART-1000 ) is just Victor MC-L1000 principle. "New" is not always new :)) |
