van den Hul Colibri, Koetsu Rosewood Signature, SoundSmith Sussurro Mk ii
How can you mount a Koetsu to the arm with 8g effective mass ? Koetsu Rosewood Signature Compliance: 5 at 100Hz (about 8.5 cu at 10Hz) Even 14g (blue) armtube is not enough for Koetsu, no ? You need 30g effective mass to use such low compliance cartridges with the best result |
Chakster is right - if you want to try different sound than usual MM and MI designs you have to invest into heavy tonearm (I don't argue that you'll get better sound just different ) Moerch DP6 (yellow) is medium light tonearm. If to look into compliance it should work with Colibri. Although if you want to try different sound - go for Koetsu. Peter Ledermann arguments about moving iron superiority is bs and shame on him. |
The Mørch should work just fine with the Rosewood, especially with a blue arm tube. Way back I tested an Onyx Platinum in my (then) Syrinx PU3b with an effective mass of 11g and it worked beautifully. The paramount issues are the quality of the arm’s bearings, its general construction quality and tolerances, not adherence to a compatibility table which dates from the 50s and is likely quite incorrect. The Mørch scores high on all three and I’d have no doubts about using it with a Rosewood. I’d still buy the Colibri though. |
A low compliance cartridge on mid mass tonearms (or on a light mass tonearm) may be "fine" only for those who does not care about theory of resonance frequency described here. It’s easy to measure tonearm/cartridge resonance with Hi-Fi Test LP. 8g "yellow" armtube suggested by the OP. It’s a bad choice for a very low compliance cartridge! 14g "blue" armtube is better, but not ideal. Everything can work until there is an issue with some slightly warped records and stuff like that. There are tonearm with effective mass twice as much compared to Moerch "blue" and they are made for low compliance MC Koetsu is not just a low compliance, it’s an EXTREMELY LOW compliance (7.5 cu at 10Hz) |
After years of focusing on medium to high compliance MM and MI cartridges in various turntables, I’m finally looking to add my first serious MC cartridge. Ortofon MC2000 could be your last LOMC if you have all those Moerch arm tubes, because it is a high compliance MC. But only if you can find a dedicated SUT or special current injection type phono stage (or very high gain phono stage). Diamond cantilever Dynavector KARAT 17d2 mkII or higher in this series is also perfect choice! It does not require high mass tonearm. P.S. For a very low compliance cartridges you really need another tonearm, with much higher effective mass. |
