Don't spend $9K! Unless you've just made a killing in the stock market! The lower-priced Miyajima's are perfectly fine sounding cartridges!
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Do you know the length or effective mass of your particular Schröder Ref? I have two different SQ examples of this arm, and the shorter of the two (253mm effective length) with its 'swamp-oak' armwand, did not seem to have sufficient effective mass to be fully compatible with the low compliance of the Shilabe (though the heavier/longer arm had no such trouble). On a few tracks that have extremely intense sub-bass the cartridge would fail to track and actually jump out of the groove from resonance. To be clear, this was only on a few extremely intense LF torture tracks. That said, with most music the combination sounded terrific, and the arm mates beautifully with no issues whatsoever with the Kansui and Madake- I assume due to their slightly higher compliance. I don't have any experience with the Fuuga, so can't shed any light there. I hope this is of some help to you. |
Very helpful, thanks. I don't yet know the length or effective mass of the arm, I am planning on having OMA (link below) build it to the specifications of whichever cartridge I end up with. It's looking like the Kansui. https://oswaldsmillaudio.com/schroder_reference Just surprised at how few have commented generally on the Fuuga. |
@maxgh A very interesting boutique company. I did note however that they state their products are made by hand in Pennsylvania; yet the tone arm is made entirely by Mr. Frank Schröder himself, in Berlin, Germany. The webpage perhaps needs to be updated or corrected for accuracy. The tonearms look a million bucks though. Real quality there. Actually the whole product range is a bit esoteric, quirky but full of quality and performance. I see what you see. |
maxgh, prior to purchasing a Fuuga, I discussed this same topic at length with the designer of my primary analog front end (AF) who owns numerous Miyajima Labs cart's in addition to the Fuuga. During playback, these are very different animals with distinctively unique characteristics. Right now, I the Miyabi Fuuga is coupled to the 4Point on my AF NGS direct drive and could not be more delighted. Dynamic, lively, clean, clear and open yet musical with natural tonal hues. Huge scope and scale as well. Definitely prefer over my Lyra Atlas and sold off the Miyajima long ago, as it simply was not in the same league. "Don't spend $9K! Unless you've just made a killing in the stock market! The lower-priced Miyajima's are perfectly fine sounding cartridges!"Humbly disagree here, all is relative. When you are well invested into the hobby ~ art of analog playback $9k for a reference level phono cartridge is quite appropriate and still lies far away from the most stratospheric priced carts. This is a critical part of the analog chain, perhaps in some aspects the most critical, depending on your individual perspective, opinions vary. Try the Fuuga, it's a keeper. |
Fuuga is an excellent choice! I never compared it with Miyiajima but I was convinced to give the extra money when I compared it with the Symphonic Line RG8 that I had at the time. I cannot describe the differences but there were quite a few - specially in the way voices are represented. I think that it has a more natural timberall around. I pair it with an Ikeda 12' arm on a EAT Forte S and they make a nice combination. I cannot comment on your arm - I do not know it. P.S. I recently bought a Bardo with a DaVinci Nobile for my other system that I have not set up yet! Hope you make a choice that will please you. |