Koetsu cartridges - myth or reality?

Dear Sirspeedy: I owned that arm and I never try it with Koetsu but if you are running there then that means that is a good match.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Downunder: The XV-1 is a very " noble " cartridge that sounds good almost everywhere, so either of those tonearms are very good match.

About Koetsu, this depend the stone ones like the Onyx Platinum works better on the Phantom but the Rosewood Platinum performs best with the Dyna. I'm not saying that the Rosewood/Onyx don't perform well in the other tonearm I'm saying that performs better.

Now, I know that many owners of the 507/XV-1 are using the own 507 headshell, that is a good one around 15grs on weight, and have very good performance: in my experience about I achieve a little better quality performance with a different headshell ( lower weight ), this cartridge issue is true for the Koetsu too and maybe if you try hard the stone's Koetsu could shine too on the 507.

The 507 give to any one the opportunity to find the best quality performance in the cartridge trying with different headshells, IMHO it is worth the effort and almost inexpensive. I'm not saying here that the 507 is the best tonearm out there because of that no there are other great tonearms and the Phantom is one of those top contenders.

Now, as you know when we are talking of tonearm/cartridge performance almost always the result is system dependent and " self " dependent according to each one priorities. Yes, today is almost imposible to have statements in absolute terms because all of us already know that almost all is " relative " .

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul - Some say that the 507 is a quite heavy arm for a suspension table - and is more suited for heavy-non-suspended turntables as yours - do you agree?

Dear Fernando: Ask to your TT builder. That subject is TT dependent, example the SME 20/30 ( a suspended design ) works very good along the 507, but the LP-12 is not good with the 507. You have to check.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

If I may add to Flg2001's question about the 507. The issue with this tonearm is mostly related to mass distribution once the arm is mounted on the turntable. The arm itself is 3 lbs, which is something to factor in when considering matching it with some lightweight turntables, suspended or not.

A high-mass turntable design, suspended or not, should be able to accommodate the 3 lbs of the arm without much unbalancing of the mass distribution of the turntable. This is because the extra mass added is a small percentage of the total mass of the turntable.

Conversely, if such a weight (3 lbs) is added to a light turntable, the extra mass will be a large percentage of the total weight of the table and this will certainly tax one side of the structure of the turntable, eventually changing its resonance.

Of course, my comments are general in nature and they don't address any specific design of turntable. An engineer designing a light turntable could foresee the installation of a heavier arm and design the mass distribution and structural supports accordingly.

Regards,

iSanchez