stereophile.com n August2019 53
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BY HERB REICHERT
EXPLORING THE ANALOG ADVENTUREimpedance and a low output voltage
(0.25mV at 1kHz) and are magnetical-
ly coupled to a samarium cobalt mag-
net with soft-iron flux-director bits.
The $5400 Etsuro Urushi Cobalt
Blue is the least expensive of three
Etsuro MC cartridges jointly developed
by Mr. Masao Okada, CEO/CTO
of Excel Sound Co., Ltd.^1 and Mr.
Etsuro Akiyama of Dai-ichi Shoji Co.,
Ltd. The middle-level Etsuro Urushi
Burgundy is priced at $8400, while the
Gold is $20,995.MCs & SUTs
To me, the Etsuro Urushi Cobalt
Blue’s low source impedance and low
output voltage are an invitation to
experiment with high-quality moving-
coil step-up transformers (SUTs).
My experience has been that MCs
with SUTs deliver a quieter, subtler,
more naturally articulated sound thanactive MC stages or outboard head
amps, which can sound overstated,
exaggerating the “coil-ness” of moving
coils. Therefore...
At the beginning of my Etsuro
Urushi Cobalt Blue auditions, I experi-
mented with four moving-coil step-up
transformers, each with a 1:10 turns
ratio, each connected to the moving-
magnet input of my Tavish Design
Adagio phono preamplifier ($1790) or,
alternatively, the Musical Surroundings
Phonomena II+ phono stage ($750)
with optional Linear Charging Power
Supply ($650).
The Adagio has long been the axis
mundi of my cartridge comparisons.
Why? Because if I connect one record
player to its moving-coil input and an-
other to its moving magnet input, I can
use a front panel switch to alternate
quickly between the two inputs. This
is heaven for cartridge comparisons
because, for its moving-coil input, the
Adagio employs a Jensen JT-44K-DX
step-up transformer, which adds 20dB
of gain to its 44dB moving-magnet in-
put. As a result, I can choose between
two transformer-coupled MCs at the
flip of a switch.
There is, however, one problem:
Unless I buy the SUTs from the same
company that made the cartridge
(Ortofon, Dynavector, and Denon,
to name just three, make matchingW
e were playing some old, cherished black discs when my partner,
bb (the 6'- tall Aries artist), declared, “With records you hear touch,
and you are not alone.” Long pause. “Just holding the cover brings
back memories—that’s their humanity.”
At the Rocky Mountan Audio Fest in 2017, I walked into the Believe High
Fidelity room and, just inside the door, I stopped, closed my eyes, and examined
the sound with my mind. What I heard was glowing and tactile—and it occupied
the room in an attention-grabbing way. I asked Believe HiFi’s principal “believer,”
Joshua Masongsong, “What’s going on here?” He started talking about the speak-
ers and amplifiers, but I wasn’t listening: I knew it was something else. So I sat
down in the sweet spot and closed my eyes again.
On my way out, I whispered to
Joshua, “Remind me, what’s the name
of that cartridge?” That was my first
encounter with the $5400 Etsuro Uru-
shi Cobalt Blue moving-coil cartridge.
At RMAF 2018, I walked into
Believe HiFi’s room and immediately
felt the sound in the air. Once again, I
sensed it occupying the room.
The more I listened, the clearer it
became: This MC cartridge was doing
something quite different than the
Koetsus, Lyras, and Ortofons I was
familiar with. But I couldn’t find words
to describe what I observed. On my
way out, I had to ask, “Listen, Joshua,
I’m having strong feelings about this
cartridge—may I please review it?”
In today’s audio world, an expensive,
hand-built Urushi-lacquered phono
cartridge packaged in a rice-paper-
wrapped wood box is the aesthetic and
commercial opposite of a computer-
designed, mass-produced,
wave-soldered, DAC chip.
That difference is what this
story is about.
Etsuro Urushi Cobalt Blue
Etsuro Urushi’s Cobalt Blue
cartridge sports an A7075
duralumin body, coated with
cobalt blue Urushi lacquer,
and weighs 8.1gm. Protrud-
ing from its glossy structure is
a 0.4mm-diameter sapphire-
pipe cantilever with an 80μm
Microline diamond stylus
and fine-wire coils of only
a few turns. These scantly
wound coils generate a low
(3 ohms at 1kHz) output
SUTs), it can be extremely
difficult to choose the right
one. On the surface, choosing
a transformer seems simple:
Choose the one with the
turns ratio (1:5, 1:10, 1:20,
etc.) required to achieve
sufficient system gain. But in
addition to gain, the trans-
former’s turns ratio plays a
significant part in determin-
ing the load the cartridge
sees. The rule states that
impedance is the square of
the turns ratio. For example,
a 1:10 transformer deliversTHIS ISSUE:Herbreviewstwo
newphonocartridgesmade
bythesameMCspecialist.Two new cartridges from Excel
1 Excel Sound Corporation has been
manufacturing moving-coil cartridges for
more than 50 years.