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Allnic Puritas vs. Koetsu Stone Body

Last time I had an opportunity to compare side by side Koetsu Jade and Koetsu Jade with diamond cantilever.
I must admit that DC Koetsu was simply amazing. Compared with stock Jade it was like completly different cartridge. Much better on frequency extremes, more airy, more precise, better articulation.
After auditioning Jade DC stock Jade sounded not very interesting.

I am considering Koetsu stone body with DC to my system, but think rather about Coralstone DC.
Unfortunately Koetsu cartridges have some flaws.
They do not give the best sound money can buy,
Are overpriced,
Hard to find good match with heavy mass tonearm.

For the Coralstone I was thinking about Origin Live 12" Enterprise C tonearm 22g effective mass.

As an alternative I was thinking about Allnic Puritas cartridge paired with new 12" Reed 3P tonearm.
I know that this is different price poin compared to top of the line Koetsu, but Allnic have some unique features and seems to have some sonic advantages of Koetsu sound.

Table is TW Acustic Raven AC.

Could you kindly share your impresions about above mentioned sets and let me know some advices?
milimetr
lotus340r
32 posts
 
I don't think Hammertone are in the business of selling tonearms so they have no vested interest. David is just passionate about showing the Puritas in the best possible light. Yes, it can work in the Reed but some people report problems with sibilance. Regardless, there are better arms for it as David's painstaking research has shown. In point of fact I actually sell Reed here in the UK but i am just trying to pass on the correct information to help out.
lewm
13,356 posts
 
All good points. I am sure David has done much more work on this subject than I.

I would only comment that the etiology of "sibilance" is one of the most vexing among problems that occur in vinyl audio reproduction. (Meaning, there are many causes.) One of the last elements in the equation that I would indict is the tonearm, per se. VTA, VTF, azimuth adjustment, the cartridge, the LP, the phono stage, all would come ahead of some intrinsic deficiency of the tonearm design as a cause of sibilance, so long as we limit the discussion to really well designed and well built ones.
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xactaudio
156 posts
 
Have had both carts in my system so maybe I can add something other than speculation. I have to say, interesting if not odd cart choices. I don't think you could have two carts (Puritas and Koetsu) that could be much further apart on the sound spectrum. One is very energetic and one very smooth. Both have great detail retrieval but those details are presented in two very different ways.

The Puritas sounds very good on a 12" hardwood Reed arm. No sibilance. Would it sound better on a heavier arm? Maybe, as the Puritas is rather stiffly suspended. I did try a Puritas on a Fidelity Research 66 arm which is high mass. The sound was different but I would not say it was particularly better overall than the Reed.

The Coralstone was very happy on the FR 66. I mean REALLY happy.
suteetat
435 posts
 
I have Coralstone (regular version) on FR64s which works very well. I tried Coralstone on Reed3Q (22g effective mass) and TW Raven AC-1 and it was not a good combination, rather bland and uninspiring. TW also does not recommend using Koetsu with its table when I talked to TW initially before buying TW. Whether it was synergy, personal preference or whatever, but I have to agree that the above combination did not really work. Coralstone sounded much better with FR64s and Micro Seiki table.Unfortunately I did not have a chance to try FR64s with Koetsu and TW so I can't tell you if it was the arm, the table or both that did not work with Koetsu.
milimetr OP
141 posts
 
Thank you for the input.
I heard that Koetsu works very good with Fidelity Research tonearms, but... these arms have their age... and I would like to avoid purchasing used arm as we never know the actual condition of such arm.

From current production arm it is hard to find something comparable.

I got another recommendation of cartridge from the person with Raven turntable and extensive experience with Koetsu cartridges. It is Kondo IO-M cart with (mandatory) KSL stepu-up. All strenghts of Koetsu without their flaws. I suppose that arm matching for Kondo IO-M would be easier than for Koetsu (Reed for example).

What do you think?
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