Carts that sound like a Koetsu

Raul,

I've heard the Urushi, the RSP and the Onyx Platinum, but not the RS.

When I had the RSP in my system I did use stepups, but Cello's two phono stages and my new one all use SS for the primary gain stage. The sonic character we've heard cannot be attributed to an SUT, nor to any particular phono stage.

***

the Koetsus are not very friendly to match well with tonearm

I believe you. Many months ago you said you'd finally found one tonearm that works with your RSP, but I think this is the first time you've named it. Is the GST-801 a very high mass arm? I would expect that to work best.

BTW, a correspondent of Arthur Salvatore really likes his GST-801 + XV-1S. You should try your XV-1S on that arm if you haven't already done so.

***
Raul or Cmk,
Do you remember what amp you heard driving B&W's that had boxy or impaired bass? I ask because we had that problem until we got our present amp, power cords and speaker cables. There are few amps in the world which compare with this one for driving these speakers, including the Classe amps B&W uses to voice them. In a direct A/B this amp sent a pair of Classe monoblocks home. It takes more than great speakers to make great speakers. ;-)

Doug

P.S. I'd love a set of 803D's with the simpler Xover, diamond tweeter and the new, lighter/stiffer woofer cones. Some day...

Doug/Raul
I heard the B&W802 nautilus driven by Pass Labs monoblocks. IMO no doubt they are clean sounding, but it cannot completely remove the box sound, typically a slight hump in the 80-120hz range. I must emphasize it was marginal, and shows up as a blurring of the sonic image.

I am already used to hearing my music from a point source and with speed/dynamics through the Cabasse Baltics. Panel speakers will also give this sort of box free sound.

Anyway, coming back to the main topic, I'm currently fiddling with the Conductor arm and the AT33PTG cart(which leans to the detailed/analytical side). What I get is very clean sound, huge soundstage and every bit of detail on the LP, including bad mixes and errors of the pressing. I maybe insane, on some recordings, the images just sound like cardboard cut outs, but on some good recordings, its produces amazing full bodied sound. In times like this, I sometimes would prefer a more forgiving cart like the Denon 103R or a Koetsu.

I'll play a bit more with the AT cart and give it a bit more time before switching over to the Denon and see how things work out.

Dear Doug: From a few months to now my XV-1 is in one of my GST-801. I don't know but every cartridge that I run through the GST-801 simple shines.

Doug, it is in borderline of high mass but nothing like " very high mass ". Well the KRSP has no Koetsu sound at all, I'm very happy with it.

Well I heard a few B&W models from the old 801 to the 25 Silver ( this one I like it ) and with several electronics ( tube and SS ): Pass, Audio Note, Conrad Jhonson, Audio research, Classe, M. Levinson, Krell.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Thanks, guys. Excellent info.

Apologies to Dazzdax for the digressions.

Doug I have no current reference for your current electronics. I beleive you were a former cj owner. So was I. My curret change of electronics is to try to get that leading edge right.
In some ways I agree with you. I don't hate the sound of rounded transients. I just find it lacking, No doubt so did you.
gregadd