XV1t vs. Koetsu

i haven't heard the xv 1t but have heard Koetsu Urushi, rosewood, black and the xv1s. Here are my personal experience:

xv1s- fast, detailed, big, bold sound, great bass but not the tighest. Very good presence

Koetsu house sound- warm, very midrange oriented, "personally hard to beat midrange", top rolled off, bottom end a bit loose. Very musical, truth to timbre, harmonics.

Both carts are very very good & it would be nice to have both carts in the same table w/ two arms.

If to get just one, I'd be having a hard time, but i think for an overall sound, the xv1s would probably what i would go.

I have not heard XV-1t either but have listened to Onyx, Rosewood and XV-1s in my system. Nolitan's description of XV-1s is very accurate. Koetsu as a whole offer smoother, richer more pleasing midrange. However Onyx offers more extended top and much better control bottom than Rosewood. I found Rosewood excellent with vocal, piano, small jazz but could not compete with XV-1s in large symphonic work, rock/pop so I think XV-1s is a better all around cartridge than Rosewood, at least in my system. However, I would take Onyx over 1s. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how it would compare to 1t though.

As a bonus for Koetsu, I find Koetsu cartridge in general to be one of the quietest if not the quietest cartridge and much better tracker than most other cartriges that I tried.

Used to own both the Xv1t and the Coralstone. Coralstone had a smoother midrange and just as much detail as the xv1T. Koetsu has an elegant and natural sound. Xv1T is faster. Both are very neutral. I was surprised by Coralstone as most think of Koetsu as rich or colored. I guess stone body and wood body Koetsus are different. Xv1T seems to have better QC with better channel separation and near perfectly perpendicular stylus. The Koetsu stone body is quite heavy. If the cart needed to be rotated slightly to adjust azimuth, this may change antiskate very significantly. Xv1T has a more dynamic bass response but Coralstone is not far behind. Aligning Koetsu is more difficult as the large body obscured the stylus. USB microscope helps a lot.

Results are very dependent on table, arm, phono matching.