Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

While unmistakably a 'Koetsu', this Coral stone-cloaked MC demonstrates that every one of the brand's mineral/stone-bodied pick-ups brings its own personality to the party

At the high-end of the hi-fi industry, there are companies that, while well-known to the audiophile cognoscenti, still remain something of an enigma. Japanese cartridge brand Koetsu fits that description – its name is often uttered in hushed, reverential tones, but if you're hoping for a quick Google to unleash a thorough technical insight into its products, as you might for Audio-Technica or Ortofon, then you're in for a disappointment. The £8498 Coralstone moving-coil tested here is one of Koetsu's top models, but flies in under the radar with minimal fanfare.

Like a winery with one grape but a dozen variants, Koetsu's latest Urushis challenge moving-coil veterans with subtleties – will the Vermillion leave us seeing red?

Urushi and I? We go wa-a-y back. It was in the April 1990 issue that I reviewed my first, never having seen such gorgeous lacquer on anything, let alone an MC cartridge. As with Sonus faber rewriting speaker design language, the Urushi was 'something else'. It wasn't the first time high-end cartridges exhibited aesthetics beyond the style of a cool profile – the body of Goldbug's Mr Brier [HFN May' 86] was egg-shaped wood, and pastel-anodised metal had been around for years – but this was jewellery.

The Kandid is a device purposed to work hand-in-glove with the Sondek LP12 turntable and Ekos SE tonearm combination. It replaces the Akiva, which has flown the marque’s flag for MCs for a good few years now. The Kandid differs in several significant ways, the most visually conspicuous of which is its new ‘naked’ generator assembly. It has long been known that cartridge bodies induce coloration.

There must have been at least a few moments in the 1990s when Linn came close to dropping the Sondek for good. In the brave new world of multi-room, AV and custom install products aimed at well-heeled Beocustomers, that old belt-driven LP spinner was becoming a serious anachronism. Then there came a sea-change, as, to its credit, Linn seemed to rediscover its musical roots, launching the Majik CD playing system, and at around the same time starting to wheel out the LP12 for hi-fi shows once more. Subsequently, the latest enhancements of the LP12 and the Ekos arm have been highlighted as ‘SE’ upgrades.

It’s no idle exaggeration to say that the Sondek LP12 has been a touchstone for record playback during the three decades-plus of its continuous production. And although Linn Products has earned its credentials as a progressive company by embracing new areas of business such as multiroom and AV electronics, and despite the low demand for record players compared to the heyday of the 1980s, the LP12 has stubbornly stayed in the catalogue. It’s a reminder of the company’s heritage but also surely a testament to the turntable’s abiding popularity, since Linn wouldn’t trouble itself to make something no-one would buy. Externally almost identical since 1973, many small changes have been made inside over the years in order to improve its sound, principally by tightening tolerances on metal components and substituting superior suspension pieces.

Taking its cues from the PD-171 turntable, but with a more elegant aesthetic, the PD-151 is Luxman's first new deck in eight years. Does it sound as clean as it looks?

How deliciously ironic: two turntables this month from companies with vast experience in vacuum hold-down of the LP, yet neither of them possesses it. Continuum's Obsidian is a complete departure from its LP-sucking forebears, while Luxman's PD-151 is fundamentally a simplified PD-171 [HFN Dec '13] – the model which revived the brand's turntable line in 2011, but minus the vacuum function of yore.