Best Koetsu for SME V

Steve:

AFAIR, Sugano-san was indeed using idler turntables but these were Garrards (301 & 401) rather than Lencos. I visited him a number of times, and don't recall having seen him with a Lenco.

BTW, an idler is not a DD, and again I don't recall having seen Sugano use a DD.

regards, jonathan carr

I used a Urushi on an SME V. Now I am using a Jade on an Ikeda. The Urushi sounded fabulous but you did lose the last bit of bass. What I did to maximize the performance is use the spacer between the Koetsu & Headshell to be able to get the VTa negative enough. The other thing is I added mass to the SME V using Bluetak inside the headshell (but not into the armtube) and blue tak on top of the arm at the pivot. This advise I found on AA. It worked wonders. Truly increased dynamics and extension. IME Koetsu prefer high mass. SME V is medium but w. the blue tak (it didn't look bad at all) I had a high mass arm. I would suggest the RSP as probably the best of both worlds for the money.

Thanks Jonathan, my mistake re the DD. I hope to get my Lenco rebuild done in a couple of weeks, so the comparison between this idler drive and the SP10 DD in heavy plinths will be interesting. For what its worth, on both of my rebuilds have gone to some length to isolate the arm board from the possible vibrations from the motor drives and platters. On the Lenco I am building one board firmly coupled to the table mass plinth as most folks usually build and the other decoupled from the table plinth but coupled to the base plinth that the table is also coupled to, so I can compare the two.

Since I am so pleasantly surprised with my newly acquired Koetsu RS I would like to hear from those have compared that with the RSP.
Steve

I use the Black and like it a lot. Has aluminum body.

Hi Dgad
I am using the Urushi with the SME 312S and would like to increase the effective weight of the arm to get a better sound. I would like to seek your advise on how much weight and where to put the Bluetak at the pivot. Do you mean to put Bluetaks at both sides of the pivot so that the weight can be balanced off? Do you suggest to use the oil provided as damping? Thanks in adance for your help.
Sum