MR F wrote:Can you give me some general impressions of that cartridge? I intend to send mine off to Soundsmith when I save up the money, hopefully it is not beyond repair.
It is a good cartridge and was well rated by the Audio Critic if you were ever a follower of their stuff. They were designed by Isamu Ikeda. The company went under in the mid 80's, but the designer still seems to be around and is making custom cartridges in Japan. See this link:
http://www.audionautes.com/Altriprodotti/ikeda/ikeda_eng.htmI recall it was one of the first cartridges to use silver wire for the coils and a line contact low radius diamond. Although from your photo that part is toast now. I paid just over $200 for it in about 1980. Apparently they later sold for up to $600 or so as the supply dried up.
My cantilever got bent but I was able to bend it back and it still played. Peter Lederman at Soundsmith rebuilt it with a ruby cantilever and the mid priced diamond. It sounded OK, but perhaps lost a little output. It took almost 6 months as I recall so it was hard to remember or compare sound before to after. Also my rebend of the cantilever had it off in sound before I sent it in.
The output is quite low at 0.14 uV and apparently the matching transformer was the Fidelity Research FRT-3. I have a one page test and review of the cartridge that I could send you if you want to PM me with an e-mail address. The frequency response is quite impressive with only a very gradual drop in output starting at about 500 Hz and ending up about 1 dB low at 20K. Balance is excellent, and separation rages from 20 dB at low frequencies to about 26 dB at 20K.
As far whether it is repairable, Peter Lederman should be able to tell you once he sees it. My cantilever was right angled too, but yours does look a little rough. I would guess the real issue is whether or not there is damage in the coil area, as the cantilever of course is replaced.
I believe the cartridge is in the Library section here if you want the specs.
Hope that helps some,
