Kiseki Blue.....


Does anyone remember/know the tracking weight for this cartridges?
dkarmeli

Showing 3 responses by johnnantais

I own one which still works very well, and I track it at about 1.9 grams. A little less or a little more will depend on the cartridge's interaction with the tonearm. But this cartridge has worked well with every tonearm I've tried it on: very friendly, if very heavy.
Not the worlds' best tracker? I've always thought of this as the best tracker I've ever had, apart from a Shure V15, latest edition. It likes more mass, and works fine on Rega arms and on air-bearings. What arm are you using it in? I think of it as the Shure of MCs: unfailingly musical, good with rhythm, not bright, and good in the bass. It might need some breaking in, and a drop of Stylast run down the cantilever into the inner workings of the cartridge frees up the suspension (though I don't know what it does to the suspension in the long run) and improves the bass. If you want to sell it, let me know.
Stylast is not a cleaner, but a protection agent, and it was used to free up suspensions by audio reviewers in the '80s all the time. I used it on my Kiseki 3 years ago and it peformed as advertised, restoring the bass and dynamics, and I haven't had a problem since. However, you are right that there is no way to know - short of sending it to Van den Hul - exactly what it is doing. If you get desperate and don't want to send it for a rebuild (it's not really a classic, though it is very well built, I've considered sending it for a boron cantilever/stylus rebuild), you have the option. The Dynavector is an exotic arm - I had a chance to buy one at a good price and passed on it, and I've been kicking myself ever since - and it is hard to know what is going on, as there's such little experience out there of this arm. I can say that it works very well on my Maplenoll, which has high lateral mass like your Dynavector. Twl on this website would probably know something. I hope it works out for you, it really does track better than most MCs, when set up optimally: I've never heard it mistracking, though I don't as a rule use test records, just "real" ones. Kiseki-san polished his diamonds with human hair as a final step.