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Koetsu Restoration

I just finished a weekend listening to a Koetsu Black I had restored by Soundsmith and thought I should share this with other members. I had it restored with Soundsmith's Ruby Cantilever and Optimized Contour. Their top of the line restoration. I have to confessed I never expected the out of the box performance I heard on this cartridge. I installed it on a second system and my wife said it sounded better than my main system which is $10K more expensive. The level of expression and musicality on this restored cartridge was beyond my expectations. Enough said! Before you discard your old cartridge you may want to consider a restoration. I did and I am really happy with the results. This is the first time I have had a cartridge restored and I am already considering the restoration of two other classic cartridges I have.
dserran
david12
1,398 posts
 
I had my Red Signature retipped by the Experst Stylus company in the UK. I think it's very hard to compare the sound, once you have waited a couple of months for it's return, but it sounded pretty darn good to me. They replace tip and cantilever if necessary. Cost £225 against £1800 in the UK for a rebuild, the maths is pretty compelling
crem1
672 posts
 
Threaders : Peter of Soundsmith is a rare genius in the field of cartridge rebuild. Many of us have been content until listening to his work. In my world of audio-heads here and across the pond , Peter is the most respected cartridge builder. Please consider these comments before thrashing $$$$ rather than a re-build. Cheers !
bolson
36 posts
 
The suspension finally collapsed on my old Koetsu Rodewood Signature. Soundsmith did a suspension reconstruction plus the ruby cantilever and optimized contour diamond. It's hard to compare by memory, but there's no doubt that the rebuild has a higher resolution than the original. I'm very pleased.
markc2
15 posts
 
20 years? Do these cartridges really last that long? I was thinking about buying a Black and even if it last's half that long that would be awesome..

My pre-amp is a Mcintosh C220 and it has about 64 db of gain, would this be enough for the Black? and if so what would kind of step up would be a good idea?

thanks

Mark
eweedhome
227 posts
 
For what it's worth, I ended up buying a new Koetsu Black instead of having my 20 year old one rebuilt. I liked the old one reasonably well, but I have to admit, there was no real comparison. I think that those that postulated that the innards of the old one would have dried out (or whatever) and become less responsive were correct. (This wasn't a stylus issue...it just didn't have that many hours on it--1000, maybe 1500.) The new one seems wonderful, for my taste.

Markc2, the Koetsu is very low output. I didn't have a pre-pre in my pre-amp, so got a EAR 834P, which seems to be a really fine match for the Koetsu. Very recently, I got a Rhea, which I frankly don't like as much as the EAR so far, but it's not yet broken in yet, and everyone tells me to just give it time. I know that Koetsu used to make a transformer/step-up (because I still have mine). Don't know how good they are, but one guy told me to hang onto it...I guess they're kind of rare.
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