I know a lot of people who use Koetsu cartridges and I am friends with a dealer and no one has reported problems, in terms of premature failure or poor quality control. Also, if he was recommending ClearAudio cartridges as an alternative to Koetsu, that is a particularly odd recommendation, given how different the two lines of cartridges sound. Within the Koetsu family, the wood bodied cartridges are the warmest sounding and the stone bodied cartridges sound the leanest (but, still quite warm compared to most cartridges).
I have heard some nice setups using the Kuzma 4-point tonearms. I also helped with the installation of a 4-point arm and it was a somewhat more complicated arm than most, so I would recommend not trying to do it yourself if you are not experienced. I know I read somewhere (it might be Michael Fremer from Streophile) that, in a comparison of the 14" to the 9" arm, the 9" sounded better. As in almost anything audio, there are trade-offs involved in any particular choice--14" reduces deviation of the cantilever of the cartridge from being tangent to the groove, but, the additional length means greater mass that has to be moved (or another tradeoff of less rigidity of the arm).
I favor tube amplification, but, among the solid state gear I've heard, the 500 series Naim gear sounds decent. For digital source components, I do like Naim. I own a 555 CD player and a NDS server. I am about to trade in both for the new 555 music server. The Naim representative from the parent company Focal, recently told me that the 555 CD player should not be used with the discrete regulator 555 power supply unless the 555 CD player has been modified. I did not know that, but, in any case, I had an older power supply for the CD player and used the DR supply with the NDS server, which is what Naim recommends.
One of the former US representatives for Naim was a big fan of Basis tables. He said he has heard hundreds of different set ups and found the Basis table and Vector tonearms to be consistently good. Because there is no realistic way to compare tables, I went with his recommendation.
I have heard some nice setups using the Kuzma 4-point tonearms. I also helped with the installation of a 4-point arm and it was a somewhat more complicated arm than most, so I would recommend not trying to do it yourself if you are not experienced. I know I read somewhere (it might be Michael Fremer from Streophile) that, in a comparison of the 14" to the 9" arm, the 9" sounded better. As in almost anything audio, there are trade-offs involved in any particular choice--14" reduces deviation of the cantilever of the cartridge from being tangent to the groove, but, the additional length means greater mass that has to be moved (or another tradeoff of less rigidity of the arm).
I favor tube amplification, but, among the solid state gear I've heard, the 500 series Naim gear sounds decent. For digital source components, I do like Naim. I own a 555 CD player and a NDS server. I am about to trade in both for the new 555 music server. The Naim representative from the parent company Focal, recently told me that the 555 CD player should not be used with the discrete regulator 555 power supply unless the 555 CD player has been modified. I did not know that, but, in any case, I had an older power supply for the CD player and used the DR supply with the NDS server, which is what Naim recommends.
One of the former US representatives for Naim was a big fan of Basis tables. He said he has heard hundreds of different set ups and found the Basis table and Vector tonearms to be consistently good. Because there is no realistic way to compare tables, I went with his recommendation.