I recently sent my Koetsu Blue Lace back to Japan for a rebuild and in the process Koetsu cracked the body. They are sending me a new, fully built one in it's place. This might be time to look at another cartridge that has higher output.
I have a Kuzma 4 Point 14 and run it balanced into an Aesthetix Io (partial Eclipse upgrade) with no line stage, so overall gain is acceptable but not perfect. The Io has been retubed with NOS. My soundroom is small and I have PAP Trio's with Voxativ AC-X drivers so I don't need much overall gain but having a cartridge with more output would not hurt.
My budget is around $8k +/- and I tend to favor a more laid back rather than forward sound due to older ears that are overly treble sensitive.
I have a Kuzma 4 Point 14 and run it balanced into an Aesthetix Io (partial Eclipse upgrade) with no line stage, so overall gain is acceptable but not perfect. The Io has been retubed with NOS. My soundroom is small and I have PAP Trio's with Voxativ AC-X drivers so I don't need much overall gain but having a cartridge with more output would not hurt.
My budget is around $8k +/- and I tend to favor a more laid back rather than forward sound due to older ears that are overly treble sensitive.