Koetsu Restoration


I just finished a weekend listening to a Koetsu Black I had restored by Soundsmith and thought I should share this with other members. I had it restored with Soundsmith's Ruby Cantilever and Optimized Contour. Their top of the line restoration. I have to confessed I never expected the out of the box performance I heard on this cartridge. I installed it on a second system and my wife said it sounded better than my main system which is $10K more expensive. The level of expression and musicality on this restored cartridge was beyond my expectations. Enough said! Before you discard your old cartridge you may want to consider a restoration. I did and I am really happy with the results. This is the first time I have had a cartridge restored and I am already considering the restoration of two other classic cartridges I have.
dserran
Mark, You wrote, "My pre-amp is a Mcintosh C220 and it has about 64 db of gain, would this be enough for the Black? and if so what would kind of step up would be a good idea?"

There is an internal contradiction in your question. If the gain of the C220 is sufficient, then you won't need any SUT at all. That's the ideal situation. If you're C220 really has 64db of phono gain, I would venture to guess that it WILL be sufficient for the Koetsu Black. I know nothing about the C220, but ideally you may want also to be able to reduce the phono load resistance from the standard 47K ohms to something like 100R to 200R for optimal performance, but it's a matter of personal judgement; the Koetsu will certainly "work" into a 47K load but may sound a tad bright.
My oops, this is me on very little sleep. I didn't know if 64db of gain was enough. So I could get the cartridge and it would work, as you say but might be tad bright.

Would the Grado Ph-1 mess up the sound of the Koetsu, or just let it be? Or are there any others out there along with the EAR?

Thanks for the help.

I've heard the EAR on a Wilson Benesch turntable, and it was very quiet, I could put my ear's to the speakers and I don't think I heard anything but just a slightest of whisper from the speaker, and that was my ear about 3 inches away. That with the volume turned up to normal listening levels.
Heed Quasar at $1k is a sonic bargain and versatile gain and loading-wise.

dealer disclosure.