Otono-Edison MC cartridges

No one can help with Otono-Edison / Miyajima ? 

Even Miyajima distributor can't comment on Standard Mature Wood model because it's not for sale in America. 

This doesn't help, but I did see Otono-Edison cartridges for sale in Tokyo.  They don't resemble any Miyajima cartridge I know about.  Not to say you are wrong about their relationship.

Miyajima Laboratory is a brand owned by Otono-Edison Labs.

MIYAJIMA LABORATORY is a company specializing in designing of phono cartridges. Established on March 27, 1980, has its headquarters in Fukuoka-shi, Japan. Its owner is Mr. NORIYUKI MIYAJIMA-san.

Manufacturer of all Miyajima cartridges is Otono-Edison Labs 

I'm just saying the Otono-Edison cartridges I saw on sale in Tokyo don't have the characteristic look of Miyajima cartridges.  I made a point of adding that I do not doubt what you say, and my prior understanding is the same as yours.

What specific question do you have? One of my best friends lives in Japan...perhaps he can find out.

@solypsa I’m looking for manual for Otono-Edison Standard Mature Wood MC (discontinued model). 

After a few listening sessions with Otono-Edison Standard (Miyajima) my impression is very positive. It was pre-installed by Miyajima-San on Audio-Technica (Technihard) headshell, I only made minor changes in alignment (now Baerwald) on my Lustre GST-801 tonearm.  

This is a pure midrange magic and warmth, I could not stop playing records all night. It's not even a top model from Miyajima, but everything is there. Vocals are amazing, the bass is tight, trebles are sweet. Everything is so pleasing for my ears. So the "Standard" for Miyajima is pretty high if this Edison Standard is so good. 

*What I don't know about this Otono-Edison Standard Mature Wood MC model:

-The type of the stylus tip (elliptical or shibata) ? 
-Recommended tracking force (probably 2.5 or 3g) ? 




 

I have no idea about those cartridges but being somewhat expert on Japanese woodworking tools, the Japanese tend to hoard the best stuff for themselves. They export the second grade stuff. To get a decent hand made dozuki you have to know someone in Japan to get it for you. It would not surprise me at all if Japanese home market cartridges are superior in some way to the ones they send us. 

@mixupload you have no idea what cartridge I’m talking about, you don’t even know it exist, so go away and learn something before post here, at least learn Japanese first, this cartridge made for local Japanese market and already discontinued, handful of cartridges made by Miyajima-San.

I have Miyajima Kansui with Shibata, but English manual for Miyajima is not a big deal, they made for Export market only.

Audiogon is full of i*****ts now and we have another troll as I can see.

Если тебе нечего сказать по существу, то лучше промолчать, а не демонстрировать свое невежество всему сообществу @mixupload 

I have no idea about those cartridges but being somewhat expert on Japanese woodworking tools, the Japanese tend to hoard the best stuff for themselves. They export the second grade stuff. To get a decent hand made dozuki you have to know someone in Japan to get it for you. It would not surprise me at all if Japanese home market cartridges are superior in some way to the ones they send us.

Interesting. I bought the Otono-Edison without knowing what to expect, it was a blind deal. When I bought it, I already owned Miyajima Kansui for a few years. Now my interest in Miyajima or Edison cartridges raised to the stratosphere level. It's so pleasant for my ears, now I understand rave reviews about Shilabe when it was introduced many years ago. 

What Mijo says may or may not be true of woodworking tools (that the Japanese "hoard" the best stuff for themselves), but I rather doubt it is true of audio-related products.  First of all, what does the statement mean, that the Japanese select out the units that best meet specs and ship out the remainder of that production line to foreign markets, or that the Japanese make products superior to those they market to the world and deliberately withhold those products from the rest of the world? I see no evidence of the latter, at least. 

I doubt that they send inferior products to the rest of the world. Most likely they select some parts supporting their local most competitive market and serving local distributors demands first.

My Edison Standard is identical to this one, but the wood is definitely not Ebony Wood, probably it's Rosewood like this. 

So I think it's somewhere in between of Shilabe and Waza if we're referring to Miyajima export models, but it's still different.  

Neodymium Magnet, Cross-ring method, Stylus is probably elliptical, 16 Ohm, about 0.23 mV ...  

This is what Miyajima-San said about those two models:
  技と調は特性より聴感上を重視したカートリッジです。よって音のスピード感、透明感は他を凌ぎます 

"The Technique (*Miyajima Waza) and Tone (*Miyajima Shilabe) are cartridges that emphasize hearing rather than characteristics. Therefore, the sense of speed and transparency of the sound surpasses others." 

And yes, the sound presentation with Edison Standard is very pleasant! 

**** LOST IN TRANSLATION ******

Art Dudley, Michael Fremer
Miyajima Shilabe REVIEW (from 2010):  

HERE IS A FUNNY PART:

where the word "mature" is nothing but a reference to the earlier Japanese name for Shilabe on domestic Japanese market under Otono-Edison brand. There are actually 7 "mature" models renamed later on. 

The Shilabe's documentation is unintentionally humorous, but were I buying a cartridge at this price point, I wouldn't be amused. The cartridge pins aren't marked, but the one-sheet enclosed in the package identifies which is which, advising, "Please be connected to a color." I concur! 

"This Mature is devised to be able to play a sound of LP record faithfully," the instructions inform, along with "Please talk without adding a hand when a trouble happened."

What the instructions don't inform you of is the Shilabe's low output of 0.23mV. I had to ask, though I later found it on the company's website. The internal impedance is listed as about 16 ohms. 

The loading instructions include: "A transformer and the amplifier for MC please use the thingthat [sic] it is possible for reproduction of the broadband if possible to make use of a good point of 'Mature' enough. Use is possible with low or high both with a commercial transformer. When there is a changeover switch, please choose him towards preference." Got that?

AND INTERESTING PART:

But aside from its high resolution, the Shilabe had among the fastest, cleanest transient response of any cartridge I've heard at any price. Metal sounds like metal, yet there was nothing intrinsically bright about the Shilabe's sound, which was full-bodied, deep, extremely well defined, and as fast on bottom as on top. The midrange was full but not excessively so, resulting in superbly coherent transient and harmonic performance from top to bottom. The Shilabe had the slam and fullness preferred by moving-magnet devotees, but with the resolution and speed of a good moving-coil.

Compared with the Shelter 7000 and Shun Mook Signature cartridges I review this month, the Shilabe easily sounded the most natural and convincing... 

The Miyajima Shilabe is an unusually designed and unusually fine-sounding cartridge, but its 0.23mV output means that it must be paired with a quiet, high-quality phono preamplifier. If you have one, and you're more interested in correct harmonic structure and tonal color than in imaging and soundstaging, the Shilabe is well worth considering. 

- Michael Fremer

ART DUDLEY'S PART HERE (R.I.P.):

New brand called Miyajima. Or Edison. Or Otono. Nobody knew for sure.

Mikey was right: I've now spent a few weeks with a borrowed Miyajima Shilabe, and I can recommend it, heartily and confidently, to any music lover who wants to hear from his stereo records the sort of body and presence that I and a few other mono nuts have been nattering on about, and yet who isn't willing to give up anything in the way of spatial competence, timbral neutrality, or groove noiselessness.

Noriyuki Miyajima's calling card is his cross-ring motor, which differs from other designs in four significant ways. First, the fulcrum of the cantilever's movement is at the precise center of the coil former. Thus, every deflection of the cantilever creates a precise and instantaneous signal induction. (In almost every other moving-coil motor design, the fulcrum is fore or aft of the coils, a mechanical compromise that results in an electrical nonlinearity.) Second, the left- and right-channel coils are wound in a pattern of overlapping ellipses not unlike the crossing rings in a gyroscope (which is why, I guess, it's called a cross-ring motor). Third, the former on which those coils are wound is nonmetallic. Fourth, the coil former is snugged into place from behind, with a sort of pointed axle, rather than being pulled into place from behind with a taut—and notoriously resonant—bit of steel wire. 

Noriyuki Miyajima recommends using this low-output cartridge with a step-up transformer, as opposed to an active gain stage; I heartily agree, and happily obliged.

If you've assembled a playback system around one or more vintage components, hoping for at least some of those same qualities that I enjoy, the vast majority of modern phono cartridges will sound fraudulent. You'll get the same old zizzy, airy, silvery sound you had before: monochromatic outlines with nothing colored in. You'll have wasted your money and some of your time on Earth, just to find yourself going back to high-end hell through a different door—one with an antique knob.

In the context of my system and my tastes, the Miyajima Shilabe is the next best thing to a dedicated pickup head, and is miles above anything else I've heard. It's that simple

-Art Dudley

And this is my "mature" model called "standard" wood, scroll down-  there are pictures.