Who needs a Diamond Cantilever...? 💍

Hi, and hope that everyone is staying safe!

Note that the auction listing on Yahoo.jp <https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b489057356> is for the integrated headshell version, with a long joint pipe and comparatively short diamond stylus/cantilever. I am not aware of any internal differences between this and the standard, non-Custom XL88D.

As had been written elsewhere, the higher-performance version with a short joint pipe and long diamond stylus/cantilever was also called Custom, but Mori-san seemed to think that fewer than 10 pieces were made.

FWIW, for some time I had the diamond-cantilevered AT1000MC that Raul wrote about earlier in this thread. However, I have no recollection of the cantilever being a single piece with the stylus.

The following link suggests that this was not the case, but perhaps others can look at the third photo and voice their opinions.

https://aucfree.com/items/w349368744

https://img.aucfree.com/w349368744.3.jpg

Dear @jcarr and others, do any of you have information about the Takai Laboratory Final MC cartridge? Yesterday Hifishark had a Yahoo auction listed of this intriguing beast.

The integrated headshell body looks like a Sony XL-44, but is painted in blue/grey with a copper top plate. The big surprise is that it sports Sony’s unique one piece diamond/stylus assembly. I’m not sure, but judging from the pictures it seems to have a long joint pipe and fairly short cantilever as described by @jcarr, so apparently identical to the standard XL-88D. Could this be considered a worthy alternative to the Sony?

BTW, I recently acquired an AT1000MC. The diamond cantilever has an oblique cut, but the stylus is inserted in a way similar to the Dynavector diamond cantilever assemblies. So not of one piece like the Sony. It does sound terrific though.....

Hi @edgewear 
Yoshihisa Mori was close friends with Kanemori Takai, and after Mori left Sony, he was involved in a variety of projects, one of which would have been the creation of a cartridge production line inside Final.

FWIW, Final was originally formed by two brothers with the family name of Kitamura; I was friends with them before Takai-san acquired the brand and merged it with his own Takai Laboratory.

Due to Mori-san's friendship with Takai-san, and his high-ranking position within the Sony corporate organization, I believe that Mori was able to obtain special dispensation for Takai-san to use the XL-88D design and suitable components from Sony's parts-bins.

Since Sony by that time was so heavily focused on digital (eventually Mori became the head of Sony's SACD division, and came to be called "Mr. SACD"), the cartridge IP was no longer of much value to Sony.

As you write, the body is that of an XL-44 (the XL-55 looks similar but has a different finger-lift design, among other detail differences). Small scratches reveal the underlying plastic to be of a different color than the metal-blue surface, therefore the color was painted onto the plastic rather than being molded into it (as would have been done for real bespoke production).

The coils appears to be of the coreless figure-8 type, which was the final coil design that Mori-san settled on for its MC designs.

I can't comment about the damper choice, as this is not visible from the photos. However, the damper-to-cantilever matching is one of the key aspects which can make or break a cartridge's sound, and given the size and production volume of Sony's cartridges division, they would have possessed a range of different rubber compounds and shapes. Therefore it wouldn't be a surprise if Takai-san chose a different set of dampers to the XL-88D, and if so, the sound wouldn't have been the same.

Again as you write, the joint-pipe is long and the one-piece stylus-and-cantilever diamond section short on this sample, showing that this used the standard XL-88D configuration rather than following the extreme and costly Custom.

Finally, since the body is of the integrated-shell variety, this cartridge must be used with a universal-type tonearm. The universal headshell connector, although widely adopted for its convenience, has a number of fundamental design flaws will most likely limit the performance level that can be extracted from this cartridge.

Still, this could have been a very interesting purchase. The screwed-on copper top was most likely added to make working on it easier than the molded-and-glued-shut Sony originals.

Too bad the auction seems to have ended (wonder what it ultimately sold for).

kind regards, jonathan

Dear Jonathan, thanks for your information about the history of this cartridge. Much appreciated! This is the kind of insider knowledge which makes this forum such an invaluable source. Glad you’re still willing to take the time to contribute.
The auction ended yesterday at a smidgen under 200.000 JPY and I’m happy to disclose that my Japanese contact has won it! He will send it to me in due course, with an additional (but very reasonable) ’finders fee’ added. I missed out twice on an XL-88D and after Halcro’s glowing descriptions I’m very excited to finally hear the one-piece diamond cantilever/stylus myself.

The integrated headshell is a limitation I’ve learned to live with, with cartridges like SPU, FR7, Entré Soltear II and Sony XL-55 Pro II. I can make all of them sound great in FR-64S and Audiocraft AC-4400, although the collar to tip distance is not the same in all cases (ranges between 49 and 51mm). The spec sheet of XL-44 (with 49mm distance) even claims that variations within that 2mm range don’t impact sound quality. I’ve also noticed that Ortofon is not too meticulous about observing the required 51mm collar to stylus distance for the SPU’s. I’m well aware this runs against the grain of the meticulous P2S alignment methods considered mandatory today, but in practice it does seem to work fine without audible distortion. What are your thoughts about this?

As a good audiogon citizen I will report back when I have taken delivery of this Takai Lab Final MC. I’ve promised myself this should indeed be my - uh - final MC cartridge. Yeah, right 😉

@edgewear
@jcarr 

As an owner of the Final Audio VTT1 turntable since the 80's, which is a phenominal turntable, I have seen 2 versions of the Final cartridge produced for Final by Yoshihisa Mori. One version had a half length diamond cantilever. The other had a full length diamond cantilever like the Sony XL88 Custom.

The XL88 on the Final TT was superb.

I still have a Dynavector Karat Nova 13D that Dynavector has kindly rebuilt for me a couple of times - the current one has a Microscanner tip which improved it considerably in terms of transparency.

I have also seen another Final cartridge with diamond cantilever ( half and full pipe ) with a stand alone body, not an integrated headshell, but I dont think that was based on the Sony.

Will be very interested to hear your impressions.