Koetsu Urushi: Blue Sky, Vermillion, Tsugaru

First of all, there are differences but I can never keep them straight, so I was reluctant to try to respond to your post for fear of mis-informing you. The differences are possibly in the types of magnets used, Alnico vs something else, but mostly in the wires used for the coils. I believe the Vermillion and/or the Sky Blue use silver-plated copper vs copper for the other variants. It's possible that the Sky blue uses pure silver. I use a Tsugaru (or Wajima?) and I love it. It's black with gold speckles, if that helps. The US and European prices are somewhat inflated by the importers and distributors, as is true for most other Japanese phono cartridges. If you are in Tokyo and willing to wait, you can get a good price. (Most Tokyo dealers don't stock them and they must be special ordered.)

Lewm: Prices, do'nt get me started. I can simply not understand price differentials in imported cartridges in particular. You think Koetsu is expensive in the US. A couple of years ago we paid the same number of £'s as you would in $'s for a Koetsu. That at a time when the $ was 1.8 to the £, a simply crazy difference. Both countries were importing from Japan, for goodness sake. At the time I wrote a long letter to HiFi+ about it and got a front page 3 page reply from Gregory, saying the difference was perfectly reasonable. You can easily see whose side the magazines are on and it's not the reader.

Then take the Benz line, we seem to pay about 40% less in the UK. I bought a new LP cartridge for about $2200 recently. What is it in the US, $3500? Can anyone even begin to justify these price differences? Perhaps it's shipping costs, they are pretty heavy!

I am just glad that I have a loving and loyal son who lives in Tokyo. That's how I solve the problem. But many Japanese cartridges sell for the exact same price in Tokyo as they do in the US, e.g., Lyra. I have never been able to figure that one out.

Warjarret, the more I think about it, the more I seem to recall that the Blue variant has pure silver coil wire, whereas the Vermillon has silver plated copper wiring. But this info should not be hard to verify. When I finally have to get my Urushi rebuilt, I am going to ask for the Platinum upgrade. They do not sell an "Urushi Platinum", but I think it's available on a rebuild.

Dear Warjarret: Here you can read something about:

http://www.koetsuusa.com/koetsu_products2.php

it is very difficult to find a person that owns or hear both cartridges in his system so maybe the best you can do is to ask to Koetsu and see what opinion they have about.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

I want to keep this thread going because I think Koetsu buyers need some way to decide, besides just how their dealer wants to direct them. At the last CES, I asked the USA importer for Koetsu. He said all Koetsu Urushis are built EXACTLY the same way. Maybe in the past there were some coil material and magnet material differences, but not for many years. Only the Vermillion is a little different, by having two coils in parallel (per channel), fewer windings for lower output and different guage wire to keep the coil resistance identical to the other models. He said all models sound exactly the same, with the Vermillion offered for people that particularly want the lower output. The Vermillion requires a high-gain/low-noise MC stage or step-up, whereas the others work straight into most phono stages. So it is really just up to the buyer to choose his favorite color, in these beautiful lacquer finishes.