Has anyone heard the Miyajima 'Snakewood' cartridge,

@dr-john never heard about this model, but for me it was hard to get any feedbacks from Miyajima owners in here.

My thread was about Madake: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/miyajima-madake-experience

I can now answer my own question, having installed a Miyajima Snakewood in my TW Raven Limited table.  It is a Madake but with a body  of snakewood, extremely hard, dense and expensive. I'll continue with my impressions as it breaks in.

@dr-john great, don't forget to tell us more about your reference cartridges compared to madake snakewood

I've lived with the Dynavector XV-T1 for several years and with the Kansui before that.  They portray different sound worlds altogether. As the Snakewood Madake unfolds, I'll be glad to post my impressions and comparisons.  I'm a chamber, vocal and opera listener, heavy into strings and the human voice. (A lifelong quest to own a mint tulips set of Karajan's Walkure remains unfulfilled.)  For keyboard, I defer to digital.  A Shindo Giscours pre-amp contributes not a little to the proceedings as well. Thanks for asking.

and may I add now, its existence is very hush hush.  Understandably. 

oh boy - I’m trying a humble DGG lp of Kempff playing the bagatelles of Ludwig van, and despite that engineering at the time didn’t quite match imaging with sonority, the musical experience shines through. The highs shimmer, but not unnaturally. I suspect the snake wood body allows natural tonalities to emerge more naturally than did the black wood of the initial Madake.  And as for dynamics, well.......

@dr-john
What are your impressions, now you've had some time to evaluate the cartridge?

Nandric, Once you squeeze all the oil out of it, snake wood is really hard.

After running it through the Cardas pink noise locked grooves for about 12 hours, the Snakewood Madake has opened enough to assess it - maybe more will be revealed, but what I'm hearing now certainly makes my heart beat a little faster.  Its general nature is still Miyajima: natural and neutral and still with the most musical midrange I've heard.  But this snakewood body creates a more detailed and precise image. Hard to believe, but the bass is now tighter and  the treble is extended slightly more with a noticeable increase in air surrounding each instrument, singer, etc.   

And I should mention also that the now-pin-point imaging is noticeably sharper within a more expansive soundstage than what the Blackwood Madake renders - though the Shuguang Black Treasure KT-88’s in the VAC Phi 300 may contribute there as well.

amazing - I'm playing the Beethoven Quartet box by Juilliard- and it's tracking musically like no other cartridge before. 

Last night the Snakewood Madake opened even further, allowing me to occupy the space, even the height, of the recording venue of Solti's Don Carlo on London.  Tonight I fed it through the Miyajima KSW SUT to achieve a 'rightness' of analog playback I've never achieved before in my system. I'm sure more will be revealed.  A match made in heaven. 

after sufficient hours for the Snakewood Madake to open into the KSW SUT, a play of the many Philips chamber works followed by the DGG tulips Karajan Rheingold convinces me I can live happily with this and my Shindo Giscours pre-amp for years ahead.  There's nothing I would change ......   

After your post i saw a few other models in snakewood body. 

ADDENDUM:  Art  Dudley just used the Snakewood Madake in his Capital Audio showroom - and listening to a 1974 Connoisseur Society recording of Moravec's Chopin last night, I could hear the timbre of the WOOD in his Baldwin piano - I never got that from digital or from any other cartridge. Thrilling.

The Limited Edition Snakewood takes all the stunning attributes of the bamboo cantilevered Madake to a whole new level. They are trickling out of Japan due to the incredibly difficult process needed to machine the second hardest wood that also is so brittle that many attempts yield only one or two acceptable bodies. Anyone who has heard one has been thrilled one customer buyer another just to have a spare!
Importer Robyatt Audio

robyatt - now that my Snakewood has fully bloomed, I think I am not exaggerating when I say it is a musical instrument in its own right.  And yes, it raises the already wonderful blackwood Madake to a new level altogether. I'm selling my Dyna-T, because there's no going back.

What tonearm do you have it mounted on?

TW Raven 10.5 Tonearm

https://www.tw-acustic.de/

Thanks for reply.