What tonearm(s) are people using with their Koetsu cartridges?
- Thread starter lem321
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I use them on 3 Frank Schroeder tonearms, namely the Reference, CB and DPS - which sounds super amazing! The different carts are: Rosewood Signature, Urushi Sky Blue Mono, Urushi Vermillion and Urushi Wajima Platinum.
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Very interesting system - you have both the Quads and the WE 755?
What arm are you using the Zero mono with?
All 4 Schröder tonearms I use have different effective mass figures - therefor Frank uses different woods - not to get a specific sound signature - the opposite is true - just to be able to manufacture tonearms with different effective masses while being equally in size. Frank does treat the wood, so that is looses the specific resonance behaviour with different oils and waxes (a time consuming process - which is one reason of long waiting lists - as this could not be done by a machine). Sometimes you have more than one wood type, which matches a specific effective mass you are looking for - here you can bring in your specific taste, regarding the aesthetics of specific wood types. So....that said - the Schröder tonearms can be fine tuned in terms of energy transfer and effective mass by using different headshell mounting plates. There are 4 types available. Pertinax is the most lightweight of them, followed by a sort of aluminium foam, which has very unique energy transfer characteristics. The third plate would be made of Certal and last but not least, you can use a brass plate. That being said - each arm can be used with an effective mass range, depending which headshell - plate you use. Let's say a given arm has an effective mass of 12g using the Certal plate - then if would have 9g with the Pertinax plate, 10g with the aluminium foam type and 17g with the brass plate. So such an arm can be used in an effective mass window from 9 - 17g - which is pretty unique. The extremes here are cartridge dependant - if the contact surface of a cart is made of aluminium - the best energy transfer would be possible in using the Certal plate....or Aluminium "Foam"...with cartridges which feature a bronze or brass contact area brass would be the optimum - and with wooden cartridge contact surfaces the Pertinax plate comes in handy. Experiments are needed - as sometimes things are slightly different, then theory tells us. That being said....the Miyajima Zero needs some serious effective mass - way more than any Koetsu. Here I use my Schröder DPS arm, which was made by Frank with a very heavy snakewood Tonarm tube. My DPS arm has also an aluminium headshell armature, were the plate is fixed by one screw - it is NOT made out of wood (which was my wish as I ordered this arm many, many years ago). The Miyajima Zero showed very, very nice performance with the Pertinax headshell plate as also the brass plate. - The snakewood arm has an effective mass with the Certal plan of around 19 - 20g - the Zero has a very solid wood body with some mass - which helps a lot! Using the brass plate would mate the Zero with a tonearm of around 25g effective mass - with the Pertinax plate it is waaay less - but as I wrote above - we must try and listen. The probably the Pertinax material is here the more important parameter as the sheer mass - as this combination sounds magical. Further more the Zero cart is used with a Mica Ulbrich 1:20 Nano SUT - cables from SUT to phono stage are Lyra Phono Pipe, which I like very much (super low capacitance but at the same time great shielding). And yes....I use beside the Quad ESL57 and WE755 also vintage LS3/5a (Chartwell 1 originals). All the very best - Ekki
Many thanks, Ekki, for an excellent informative post.
I have heard the Zero sound great on the Schroeder BA, I imagine the mass of that will be heavy like your DPS, Any reason you have not added the LT to your collection?
You are very welcome....! The BA is not so much heavier than the custom made DPS arm - and yes, the Zero mates very well with the BA arm (not only the Zero though). As I like the magnet bearing arms so much - I opted against the BA arm....but that is just me. Regarding the LT - that would be my final Schröder - maybe one day I will do it. As it does not fit on my favourite decks - It would be a whole system, which I had to configure around this awesome arm! - Maybe one or two sentences about mating the Koetsu with these arms (Schröder). Bot - the CB as also the magnetic bearing arms have the ability to show an amazing speed - they are not slow sounding arms - the opposite is the case. As the wood material is an amazing (chaotic structured) material - you get tremendous speed and delicacy but no harsh or synthetic sound signature. In fact these tonearms do not have a signature sound - they are very, very neutral if adjusted correctly. The mating with Koetsu carts delivers an astonishing sound quality - which is far away from what we often hear with these carts - sluggish bass, rolled off heights etc... So beside the classic mating with FR tonearms, which are a tremendous nice fit - these somewhat special designed tonearms can open up a different view on tonearm performance! Which can be clearly heard with the Koetsu....it is not always a heavy arm which makes the trick (as the Koetsu has a compliance of around 10cu - it is not a very stuff suspended cart) - the miracle is - like in most of the cases, energy management and energy transfer. All the best - Ekki
Ekki,
Thanks for that very informative post. You have clearly studied this issue very carefully and how the mating of Koetsus with the various Schroder arms and headshells affects the sound. More often than not, Koetsus get (mis)characterized as having "sluggish bass, rolled off highs" as most people never get to hear them optimized with the proper arms.
Unfortunately they are far from being neutral just like other wood arms. They are more like instruments than tonearms. Wood is a ringing material especially on the frequencies we hear. If you like the sound of your tonearms none of the above really matters but they certainly have a significant sound signature.
That would be true, if they were not treated....I had the chance several times to attack them to resonate with different tools at Franks workshop - and could compare the untreated material to the final treated armatures - and the difference is stunning. And metal is an even more ringing material - waaaaay more!!!!!
Treatment certainly change solid wood’s properties but not enough to make it as strong or rigid like metals. Or not enough to eliminate resonance inside frequency spectrum. On the other hand metals can be treated too. If solid wood is a perfect material for arm tube why doesn’t he use it for head shells too?
Solid wood is a ringing material treated or untreated, you only change resonance frequency. Wood also changes it’s shape after a while. Because of those reasons solid wood is not used on platters. Usually the better the turntable the harder the material of the platter. Same goes for tonearms. Better ones are made from steel, titanium, carbon fiber etc. I mean real carbon fiber like SAT not the plastic examples advertised as carbon fiber.
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We can also measure the resonance behaviour - and here you must use something very, very special to be more neutral than those treated wood tubes. What do you thing, why
Were should I start.....???? There is a lot wrong in your statements (physics misunderstood ???) - and it does not get more right, if we repeat it again and again. Please give me an example of a non resonating material - and if we are talking about ringing (in physical terms) metal is the worst you can get! The statement that a turntable is qualified as better (what is better???) as its platter is harder is - sorry to say that - completely wrong. But let's stop here - as physics and material behaviour is one thing, and opinions are a different story. All the best - Ekki
Can you elaborate on what you heard with the FR-64s that made a “night n day” difference compared to the Audionote arm?
I have 2 FR 64S arms. I had my Onyx on both. Also had it on a Breuer, FR 64fx, Goldmund and Souther, The Souther was an absolute disaster with the Koetsu generating resonance and the sub-arm dancing and gyrating. The others sounded OK with the T3 being the best.
The one that, to me, sounds absolute best with the Onyx is the original, old Koetsu 1100. It has no anti-skating so the soundstage does shift slightly but overall, it suits my Koetsu best,
The one that, to me, sounds absolute best with the Onyx is the original, old Koetsu 1100. It has no anti-skating so the soundstage does shift slightly but overall, it suits my Koetsu best,
I have a coralstone diamond and urushi vermillion on a Glanz 124. Wonderful.
when I went back to a turntable some years ago, I had the vermillion on an sme IV and then a V. Neither got the best out of the koetsu.
the Glanz brought the vermillion to life and the the coralstone to end game for me. Highly recommended.
i had in between A 4-point that was better than the sme, but the Glanz is better. The 4 point I have with an Esturo urushi Bordeau. The Glanz / coralstone is much better…
when I went back to a turntable some years ago, I had the vermillion on an sme IV and then a V. Neither got the best out of the koetsu.
the Glanz brought the vermillion to life and the the coralstone to end game for me. Highly recommended.
i had in between A 4-point that was better than the sme, but the Glanz is better. The 4 point I have with an Esturo urushi Bordeau. The Glanz / coralstone is much better…
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