Koetsu
- Thread starter jadis
- Start date
i don’t want to derail a koetsu thread. if you go to the analog forum you will find many cartridge threads. To really save yourself some money you need to know how some random dude recommending you over the web listens, where you lack experience, what you need to get your head around, etc.
On this forum if you generally ask people to recommend you a cartridge without knowing them well you are likely to lose money. Lots of dealers and lots of audiophiles who believe what they own is best.
but it’s a good thing you paused when you did, at silly retip/rebuild prices
Just to clarify, there is no such thing as retip with Koetsu Japan. Much like Lyra. Long ago I had emailed Stig Bjorg of Lyra about a possible retip of a cartridge he re-worked on. He described the process as rebuilt as well, and the price was eye popping even for those times. He considered the late Sugano as his mentor and on the same line of thought, repairs a broken cartridge by rebuilding it. Which now makes me wonder, with the many people of companies that do retip only, if you ask for a retip only job, do they just retip it and return it to you? I mean, without opening the body and checking the alignment or condition of the other parts? Usually, when a tip disappears, there was a physical trauma on the whole cartridge, meaning, it is highly unusual for a top tier cartridge to have a diamond stylus fall off by itself. So after a 'retip' job (simply replacing the diamond stylus), if the performance is not at par as when it was new, what happens? (ie. alignment problems from the inside of the body). I am asking this because I do not know the procedure of a retipping job.
that depends on the design of the cartridge. The top wing red sparrow design, for example, has wiring inside the cartridge body and the cantilever can be easily disconnected and the stylus replaced cheaply. From users this has caused no issues with the sonics and they got back sonics like before, no drop in performance. With vdh you are going to get a different alignment irrespective of whether you retip or buy new. Vdh is great at the servicing users at low prices so that they can get their cartridge sent back to vdh to get it inspected, realigned, or output changed . Dava guy is just friendly to his customers and if damaged he will send back the cartridge retipped fixed at virtually no cost. Both my friends were delighted after it came back. There is no drop in performance.
I just recalled another thing Stig told me. And this may not be very evident to us users. He told me if one thinks about it, it is much cheaper for them to 'assemble' and produce a brand new cartridge as the parts are already all laid out there, as new, including the body. For a rebuilding job, they have to dismantle the cartridge parts piece by piece, clean the innards and then put in the new parts. There is some cost in dismantling or stripping the cartridge and then cleaning the body. If we imagine their labor as work of art, that is not going to cheap by any stretch of imagination.
Read this Koetsu Blog I can say that it was very helpful and informative. I could understand many statements when I heard Koetsu pickups or installed them myself.
The Koetsu story – Japanese art Part I
There is something special about Japan, tradition and modern high tech are often separated with only a very small distance from each other. The attention to even the smallest detail in some …
medialux.blog
Indeed that is a very informative blog. Thanks for posting.Read this Koetsu Blog I can say that it was very helpful and informative. I could understand many statements when I heard Koetsu pickups or installed them myself.
The Koetsu story – Japanese art Part I
There is something special about Japan, tradition and modern high tech are often separated with only a very small distance from each other. The attention to even the smallest detail in some …
Part 2 of the Medialux Koetsu story.
medialux.blog
4 Koetsu compared – Japanese art Part II
In this essay I try my very best to describe the difference of 4 of the most famous Koetsu cartridges, namely the Black Goldline, the Rosewood Signature, as well as the Urushi Wajima and the somewh…
medialux.blog
When you want read more about koetsu or lyra ,in german analog forum is Ekki (username "querstrommotor"). amazing good threads, sad he is not more active there.
Custom early Sugano Urushi diamond cantilever platinum coils
Rare White Jade custom built diamond cantilever platinum coils
Darker colored & nicer looking Coralstone D was bought 2 years ago. Lighter colour coralstone D just took delivery today . Wanted another one but unfortunately limited
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Is it okay if I give you my address, so you know where to send them, hahaha
??!!/ Jk
Sure . Just send me the moneyIs it okay if I give you my address, so you know where to send them, hahaha
/ Jk
Here's a somewhat related but not often discussed question: it's proven that VTA adjustments will change cartridge alignment/offset. Is it important to re-check alignment after even small VTA adjustments?
Also related to this is that arms with the ability to alter VTA 'on the fly' typically have increased play which will again affect alignment. So you are not really changing only VTA!
Good point. If you raise (or lower) the VTA and the sound is favorable to you, but in effect it alters the other parameters of the alignment (which has an ideal set point via protractor or microscope), which set point will you choose? From what I understand, the VTA is subjective, with a straight or parallel line to the vinyl as 'normal' setting.
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