Anyone use Koetsu with Harbeth

@mulveling  is right about arm cartridge matching. Koetsu used to sell a rebranded Jelco back in the day.

@karmapolice what else is i n your music chain? what's ur turntable and phono stage? Have you a very dry system? a cool one? a warm one? I tried harbeth on the premise that they are match made in heaven for my Lavardin IT - i found it to be a bit boring and dull - that said - i must say they may not have been fully run in and the CD player was not as entertaining as my own.

That said - if you want to breathe warmth and colour into your system - go get a Koetsu.

Are you limited to one arm and cartridge?

I have a Koetsu Black.  It was in my system when I (briefly) owned a pair of Harbeth SHL-5 30th Anniversary Edition.  As good as the Koetsu Black is, and it's really good, it didn't help with those Harbeths.  I found them kind of boring no matter the source.  To me, they made everything sound the same.  Perhaps my room wasn't a good fit.  All I know is that they didn't work out for me.

thanks for all the information and input.  

I have played a lot of records in the last two days and tweaked the room acoustics and cabling a bit and find the pass lab monoblocks and harbeth 40.2 most of the time to be sublime for me so will probably just stay with the lyra kleos.  I think a warmer cartridge may backfire.  I listened to everything from sam rivers to pharoah sanders to stevie ray vaughan and eurythmics and sarah vaughan and the verve and kamasi washington.  All of it except for the kamasi sounded amazing.  the kamasi was a little bit muddy but that mastering and mix is challenging imho for any system....still enjoyable though.

I have a friend maybe down the road when the quarantine is loosened up who might be persuaded to bring over his koetsu but until then will just be very grateful for what I got

Lewm, the only reason people might think the bass has no oomph is that their tonearm's effective mass is too low. Koetsu's have plenty of oomph but they require a rather heavy arm or some ballast to do their best.
Michael, there are two basic Koetsu chassis, the regular one and the platinum magnet version which I think is a little more detailed. I think the Rosewood Signature Platinum is the hot point in the line. I know of no one who thinks Koetsu's sound bad. I have not heard one with Harbeths but I can not imagine it wouldn't sound great as long as you make sure your tonearm's effective mass is up there where it should be.  The Stone body versions will work better in lighter arms as they are quite heavy. Try as I might I can not hear much difference between the ones I have heard. I do not think IMHO they are worth the money. Having said all this if you are spending anything around $4000 you really should give the Ortofon Windfeld Ti a close look. It is not as warm as a Koetsu but it will sail through tracks that the Koetsu stumbles on. There is no cartridge that tracks as well as the Windfeld that I know of. It is perfectly neutral and plays everything well from string quartets to Metallica. I use my Koetsu mostly for classical and female voices. I also have a Clearaudio and an Air Tight. The Windfeld Ti is handily the best all round cartridge of them all because of it's neutrality and tracking ability. There are situations the other cartridges might make me unhappy but never the Windfeld.

I decided to try the koetsu signature rosewood platinum and love it so far.  It's so natural musical balanced sounding...maybe will at some future point disappoint with some poorly recorded moder records but so far serious boogie and no fatigue...