Grace Level ll

Thanks for sharing @halcro , this is a first scan of the original manual with round shape stylus holder on LEVEL II i have ever seen. Actually i have those styli including the same rounded Ruby. Same rounded styli holder comes with all F8 cartridges, probably the first bunch for LEVEL II was supplied with the same shape then. Do you see any date on the warranty card or manual? Interesting. The date i have on mine is 1984. (Wow, the date on my warranty card, as you can see, is actually Sep.24th, 1984 ... which is today but 35 years ago! :)

But please look here and you will see rectangular shape of the latest Grace LEVEL II Ruby stylus, different than yours. Probably it was an improvement for the latest production line only. I have also several sealed NOS RS-8R EXP (experimental) original styli for LEVEL II with Ruby cantilever, the Ruby and Sapphire cantilevers in RS8 EXP series looks smaller in diameter (lower mass). They are rectangular just like this Boron. The plastic holder is not red but white, just like this super rare sapphire model.

So it is obvious for me that Grace made an improvement and changed the styli for LEVEL II in the 80’s (at least since 1984).

It is very interesting how an old hi-fi products inspire modern designers today.

** Has anyone seen or read something about brand new SCHRÖDER BA tonearm ? The price is about £3000 :) 

It was inspired by very old Gray Research broadcast tonearms.

There is a correlation between Gray Research (USA) and Grace (Japan). When you look at the Gray Research logo you will think about Grace, right?

Japanese broadcast tonearm influenced by the American Grey Research tonearm was made in the 60’s by Grace, the model is the GRACE ST-160D. Read more here.

Grace is a trademark of Shinagawa Musen Co. Ltd. founded in 1949 by Akira Asakura to manufacture broadcast products, name translates as Shinagawa Radio Co. Initial product was an oil damped pickup-arm that faced competition mainly from USA based Gray Research. Here is the line of Japanese Grace tonearms from the 60’s/70’s.

Asakura-san hit upon the idea of using Roman characters for the brand name to make the brand seem more international and decided to call his products Grace as the pronunciation in Japanese is not too different to Gray. The company was supplying phono pickups since 1953, these were not copies of the US/European made designs but built on research into the properties of Rochelle Salts performed by the Riken research institute during WWII, but almost all gramophone pickups released in Japan in the first few years after the war were derived from technical data released by Riken.


P.S. Watch an interview with Mr. F.Schroder who was inspired by old Grey Research or Grace broadcast tonearms before he made his new BA model.  

Took some pictures of my LEVEL II with RS8 RUBY 
Designed made this cartridge so attractive, love the shape of the old RS8 in red. And this is the close up on my macro with focus on Ruby Cantilever. 

And now i need your help, please

I have one virtually unknown stylus for Grace LEVEL II and F8, the stylus index is RS-8US and you can see it on my cartridge (on the right), the plastic insert is clear, "US" written in white on the front side. I can't find any information about this particular RS-8US stylus. Anyone can help?

I know that RS-8U (blue) stands for Utility-4 and has a decent nude LineContact type stylus tip just like RS-9U and the closest is RS-9F (Discrete-4 with Shibata). Those "U" and "F" both have very impressive specs, but i can only refer to the F9 series catalog. 

But what about RS-8US for F8 and LEVEL II ?
Any ideas?

I only have RS-8US MR (Micro Ridge stylus) for Level II so the "US" series must be really good.

Not to shift the focus of the thread but I thought I'd mention my experience with the F-9e, which I owned but sold, and the F-14, which I currently own.

I bought the F-9e as NOS, factory sealed, from LPGear maybe four years ago. With its stock stylus it was pretty OK to my ears, if a little closed in and unresolving relative to my stable of MC carts. It really had to be loaded at 100K to open up, and even then it didn't sound altogether right, becoming a little arch yet wispy. At 75K it was neither fish nor foul. Swapping in a Soundsmith CL, it definitely improved in all areas but remained less than fully satisfying. Don;t get me wrong: it was good into 100K, fundamentally natural if not quite properly balanced, at least in my system. Even with the improved stylus it was not a cartridge I would choose to play over others I own. So it went in the drawer.

I was intrigued enough  by the Grace sound, however, to become curious about the F-14. I had read that the internal resistance was around half that of the F-9, which meant it would probably load naturally at 47K. Add better internal wiring, and it seemed highly promising. So when I found a sealed NOS unit without stylus (yes, they sold them that way) from a Japanese seller on eBay, I bought it, just to see. Right off, with the NOS F-9 stylus, it was better than the F-9. As I suspected, 47K was optimal loading. The SS CL improved on that, also as suspected. But not until I bought an OCL replacement did the F-14 really come into its own.

Now I find the F-14 to be a terrific performer, with all of the naturalness that I perceived in the F-9 but  none of the drawbacks. It resolves like a good MC but seems more transparent. It's lively but carries weight. Excellent midrange. No real faults, though maybe doesn't dig as deeply into the bass as some MCs. Nonetheless, I can readily move from listening to MCs like A90, Benz Ebony L or TR, or SPU A95, e.g., without feeling a fall-off in fidelity, just hearing a different take on high-quality playback. Really nice.