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KOETSU ROSEWOOD DILEMMA

I have an old Koetsu Rosewood Longbody from long ago. It came with a Linn LP12/Ittok, so cost nothing. But it had no stylus, and I’ve never heard it.

The stylus was sheared clean off. Some colorful fuzz was left at the scene, and forensics showed it to be red and green woolen fibers. The culprit was a clumsy audiophile in a red-and-green sweater (Christmas colors, so maybe too much egg-nog) who snagged the diamond in his cuff.

Despite the violence, the cantilever is perfect — straight and true, with a beautifully beveled flat tip for seating the stone and setting SRA. It’s not hole-through, so probably was an adhesive-only bond. Coils are fine. Suspension seems fine — sitting on a stationary LP at the right VTF, it rides just right, not low nor high — and compliance feels in the right ballpark. All in all it’s very clean, and produces sound. There’s no erosion of the gold plating, so it may have been newish. 91447 is carved into the aluminum, and an “S” — does S indicate a “signature” model?

Is it worth retipping?

As you can see, I know nothing, so any suggestions are welcome, even negative ones, especially from those who know the cartridge, and have experience with retipping.

My intention now is to keep the boron rod and just add a diamond — it should be quite close to the original sound — but I’m open to change. Installing a new cantilever+stylus is easier and less expensive, but the resulting sound is an unknown, maybe better, maybe not, maybe not Koetsu. Why have a Koetsu if it doesn’t sound like one?

Stylus-type is an issue too. I can’t even find what the original stylus was, I believe a type of hyper-elliptical. I think a fancier cut would add detail but not alter the sound otherwise, but might be wrong.

So — as I know nothing, and my few ideas may be wrong, guidance is needed.


128x128bimasta
tunes409's avatar
tunes409
9 posts
 
van den Hul retips does suspension and cantilever replacement. Turn around time is  less than 30 days. AJ van den Hul works in all rebuilds personally. Send all inquires to Finest Fidelity 386-341-9103. He is a master at this with 44 years experience
thomasgc
8 posts
 
I had my older rosewood retipped at soundsmith and am very happy 
karl_desch's avatar
karl_desch
207 posts
 
@terry9 @sturgus  Just a little follow up.  Peter Ledermann at SoundSmith called me after inspecting the damage to my newish RSP.  Evidently, the house cleaner not only snapped off the cantilever, but also bent the aluminum cantilever mounting pillar and dislodged the damper and suspension. Ugh.  After 10 hours of work he was able to correct the damage and mounted a boron cantilever whose low mass closely matches Koetsu.  He performed a full alignment and waveform test. The cartridge channel separation is 37dB; bal 1dB.
Mounted back on the FR-64S, the cartridge still sounds wonderful; midrange magic, 3D imaging, and so dynamic. I put 8 hours on it yesterday evening. Needless to say, I am very pleased with this outcome.  I realize that to some people, a major "con" of a non-Koetsu repair is lower resale value. But I plan on keeping this one until I wear it out!
terry9
931 posts
 
Karl, that is wonderful news! You say that it sounds as it always did - that's new data for me. Well done, sir!
lewm
6,770 posts
 
Karl, My own Urushi is now about 8-9 years old and has been out of use for a few years now, as I was investigating various MM and MI cartridges and lately obsessing alternately over an Audio Technica ART7 and a ZYX UNIverse (each mounted on its own turntable).  Plus I have been playing with old Ortofons, MC7500 and MC2000.  The Urushi is just lying there begging to be either used or sold.  Then I too saw that SS was offering a boron cantilever and have thought of having my Urushi refurbished.  The first step, however, would be to send it to Peter L for an assessment; I am not at all sure it even needs work.  Anyway, thanks for your report.  I would be interested to learn how you come to feel about the SS-retipped Koetsu after more time has passed.  So please keep reporting. (By the way, the ZYX UNI is the champ of them all, in my system, in my opinion, pending a re-review of the Urushi.)

To bimasta:  The last thing I would worry about is the notion that Koetsu would cheat you by re-installing inferior parts into your Rosewood body.  You don't understand the importance of honor to the Japanese.  Yes, you'll pay "through the nose", but you will get exactly what you pay for.
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