Did Koetsu Quality Decline with New Ownership

i get the price increase, but what about my original question on Quality?

what about my original question on Quality?

Nobody will know until they hit the market, and we get feedback from owners.

Dealers opinions are unreliable - they usually have a vested interest one way or the other.

Quality control, as we normally think of it, was never a particular virtue of Koetsu cartridges, and in fact maybe it is not a strong point of any of the boutique cartridges, owing to their being hand made.  In 2009, I bought two samples of Koetsu Urushi, from an audio salon in Tokyo.  When I got back to my home in the states, both of them had slightly misaligned cantilevers.  I had certificates of warranty from Koetsu, so I sent them both back to the salon which sent them on to Koetsu for correction. (This could be done only because my son lives in Tokyo and speaks perfect Japanese; I do not, and no one at that salon spoke English.). Within a few weeks I received back my cartridges with perfectly straight cantilevers, for no charge and no questions asked. To me that meant Koetsu was not unfamiliar with the idea of imperfection in their manufacturing and quality control process.

I wrote, "When I got back to my home in the states, both of them had slightly misaligned cantilevers."  Bad sentence. What I meant was that I did not inspect the cartridges at the point of purchase in Tokyo.  I only did so when I finally arrived back home.

@mulveling What you need is non-industry hobbyists with experience in Koetsu to try the new ones. But good luck - the new prices are…MUCH higher. 

+1 Koetsu cartridges are relatively expensive, so chances of finding someone to purchase new to compare to old is slim to none.

@mulveling $8K for a Rosewood Sig (non-platinum) :(
I got a brand new Coralstone Platinum for $4800 circa 2018.

Wow- $4800 for  Corralstone, what a fantastic deal!

Seeking the most musical affordable cartridge, I purchased a Rosewood Sig Platinum. The Corralstone seemed like the most musical cartridge, but was out of my price range. But when Koetsu announced the discontinuing of the Corralstone, I panicked thinking that I may never hear this cartridge. Luckily I soon found a new Corralstone D for 10k…with a big dose of self rationalization to justify this unbudgeted purchase 🙄