really? i am seing koetsus alternatives to replace my cadenza black… but not sure which one to get.
what your experience with the change you made?
tks.
Hi, I have already reported about the changes: Cadenza Black
Before the Cadenza I have used a Koetsu Black, so I cannot say anything about the higher range cartridges of Koetsu. After only 4 years I have had a problem with the cantilever which was not really tangential to the groove. This produced distortion.
In comparison to the Koetsu I run the Cadenza with 47 kOhm. The sound is more open and the bass stays punchy. A point the Koetsu makes is symphonic music. The warmth and sweetness the Koetsu produces is wonderful. But with rock, pop, jazz the Cadenza sounds very detailed, organic and also warm. It is very difficult to describe what I hear. I would suppose that you give the Koetsu a try and get a demo.
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Ekkehard Strauss has written quite a nice survey of various Koetsus on his Medialux blog. He’s a sound engineer by profession so his site probably counts as commercial, therefore I won’t link it but it’s easy to find, You have to wade through a fair bit of valve related stuff find his cartridge reviews but this part of the site is a hobby There’s also a survey of SPUs but don’t read the Lyra Etna review if you can’t afford to run one.
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That was a lot of money back in those days. !960s or thereabouts.
That was when a gallon of petrol was 4sh and 8 1/2 halfpenney.
Yes indeed! I spent probably too much of my earnings on records back then.
The new SME is very smart looking- but does it come with a cover?.. 
I’m afraid not yet. A call from track & trace on Tuesday evening put paid to my dealer visit on Wednesday. I’m now planning for a visit Tuesday next week. Hopefully second time lucky!
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That’s the one!
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Oh no, but as they the best things…….
Nils Frahm 
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My new Vertere arm was fitted today. Unfortunately my wonderful two year old ART9 has in the last couple of weeks started to show signs of the hours on the clock. So I also came away with a Hana ML. An expensive day! A couple of hours in and its sounding very promising indeed.
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Loving the orange vinyl Abba pressing with its distinctively 70’s feel!
I think I need to start wearing tank tops and brown Farah staypress trousers to fit in!
Jonathan
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@Bokermonz brilliant, what a gorgeous piece of engineering, but I truly wish you hadn’t posted those pictures 
Seriously it’s an upgrade I’m going to consider in the New Year.
Enjoy your music.
Regards,
Lindsay
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Stunning looking deck in my humble opinion.
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Lovely looking Gyrodec Jonathan. The SME IV is the perfect match.
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Thanks Richard - the GyroDec was the turntable I dreamt of owning from the age of 13 in 1982 when I discovered hi-fi and fell hopelessly in love with it! I never really expected to be in a position to buy one as money in my teens and 20’s was always in such short supply - it was in short the stuff of dreams! A few local dealers used to leave a GyroDec spinning in their window and I was mesmerised! Later as a reviewer I was very fortunate to have got to know John Michell and to have spent a little time with him at shows and at the factory - a truly brilliant engineer and a very kind and lovely man.
The SME was in the same category - unlike the Michell it was rare to even see one outside the magazines or the London hi-fi shows and I remember reading and re-reading my copies of the original launch reviews in HFN in the late 80’s. This was all pre-internet, so outside of magazines and hi-fi shows there really was no way to see this esoteric stuff in the wild. I cherished Ken Kessler’s profile of SME which was in an analogue supplement to HFN around 1988 and always remember him referring to SME as ‘purveyors of tonearms to the gentry’ - a wonderful turn of phrase!! I was so inspired by SME I actually applied to them for a job after university and received a lovely letter back from A-RA himself saying they had nothing suitable at the time but would keep my details on file!
In 2000 and to my complete shock my then Fiance (now wife) said to me ‘I want to buy you an engagement present, something you have always wanted but never thought you would get and it’s got to be something you will always keep - so today I’m going to buy you a Gyrodec’. I nearly fainted and of course said ‘oh no - it’s too much’ etc but she was resolute and so the deed was done! I didn’t have the heart to specify an SME IV on it so ended up with an RB600 for the first 19 years and had to pacify myself with Kessler! I was utterly thrilled though when I brought it home and indeed I still have home movie footage of us drinking champagne and eating fish and chips the day it arrived and the evening it was first played! To this day the Gyrodec remains my most treasured hi-fi component.
On learning in late 2019 that SME were to cease selling tonearms without turntables I was gutted because I knew that I would never part with the Gyro and by then I had aspired to an SME arm for over 30 years. I had however turned 50 by then and armed with the knowledge that in life you tend to regret the things you don’t do more than the ones you do I decided to just bung it on a credit card and buy one (no spare cash as ever!) My Mother heard about this and to my astonishment announced that Christmas ‘I want to buy you something you will always treasure and that you can remember me by and so I’m going to buy you that SME’. Apparently she remembered me falling asleep in bed with the light on and SME reviews on my pillow when I was in 6th form college!! I guess I’m just fortunate she didn’t catch me with ‘Mayfair’…
So in December 2019 I purchased the SME IV and the vinyl front end I had always dreamt of finally came together. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was how much better the Gyro sounded with the SME than the Rega. I had expected a diminishing returns level improvement but in fact was rewarded with far more than that. So much more bass slam, a feeling of architectural solidity and imaging, wider bandwidth and far more dynamic range. The Rega’s are very good arms, indeed remarkable for the price but the SME is simply in a different league.
The turntable and arm mean so much to me, not just because it took so long to attain them or because they are truly superlative audio engineering, but also because of the sentiment behind them. One of my favourite moments was inviting my Mum over for lunch after the arm was fitted and watching her savour the sound of some Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, the Righteous Brothers and a wonderful boxed set of Frank Sinatra the Capitol Years which she had bought as a Christmas gift for me around 1990. She couldn’t believe the sound and at 83 it’s a precious memory of sharing music with her!
Jonathan
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