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Japanese make some fantastic cartridges but some are very popular and some are not. Yamamoto has been mostly been working on tubes and analog equipments and they have only one cartridge. However it doesnt seem to be very popular among audiophiles here. I dont see it being recommended or discussed. The price is very competitive at just over $1k. There is only one review on the internet. Has anyone heard it ? Is it worth giving a try ? Looking for some opinions here.
Follow Ups:
After owning the 47 Labs RS-A1 tonearm and ZYX carts I have become a firm believer that both tonearms and carts play a big role in deciding how good is the PRAT of the player. I still have the 47 Labs tonearm but sold the ZYX because I found it lacking in midrange warmth. How is the PRAT of Yamamoto carts (in case you actually believe in this PRAT game)?
M is right on the money with the Yamamoto. I got one right after they were introduced and it is a wonderful cartridge. Scott Faller (reviewer) got his after hearing mine and still uses it as his primary cart. It is very good at soundstage reproduction and I find it is big on "tone". Voices and acoustic instruments are just there in the room with you.
My cart never worked correctly after the photo shoot for Enjoy the Music review so I guess Scott and I screwed something up. We were careful, but apparently not careful enough. I blame me! Soundsmith repaired it and it sounds great again.
Only concerns: it is a very low compliance cart and will need a tonearm that matches that need and will need a preamp that can deal with a very low output and the need to load the cartridge down to 50 ohms or lower. Its top end can be a little "enthusiastic" if you don't get that loading low enough.
So, there it is. I love mine, have an Ortofon TA-110 arm to accommodate its compliance and a phono pre that can get close on that loading. I also have a Denon 103R that I use. Love it too, but for different reasons.
No FU--ing from me. Order one today!
Could you please let me know with what tonearm are you using YC-03 ?
I've recently bought a YC-03S cartridge and install it on the AudioMod tonearm. On the record with heavy bass (for example Ray Brown's Solar Energy) cartridge wildly jumped out of the groove. I added mass to the headshell, same thing. I moved cartridge to SME 3012 with Yamamoto ebony headshell. Same thing, maybe less but still miss-tracking and jumping. Added weight to the headshell, it marginally helped but still far from working properly.
I Googled for posts related to this cartridge a found a few descriptions of the same issue on the Lenco Heaven forum.
Is there any remedy ? Any ideas ?
BTW, I have also Ortofon Kontrapunkt, Ortofon Samba and DL103. Previously on SME3012 was using Benz L2 and Shelter 501.
Never had/have any issues with any other cartridges.
Thanks.
Hi alexz,
Your post is strangely coincidental. I got an Audiomods for my Yamamoto and it skipped terribly. Sent the arm back for repair and when I got it back still the same problem. Sold the arm to a friend and the arm works great on his VPI without issue. So after trying it in my SME 3009 arm, I decided the cart was the problem and sent it back to Yamamoto. They returned it quickly and said the cart was OK. With the language barrier, I was never sure if they fixed it or they meant it wasn't broken. Anyway, still skipped and sounded distorted. I put it away for a year in frustration. Then I sent it to Peter at Soundsmith. When he got to it he called and said the suspension was badly cracked and he ordered 6 types of materials to get it right. I think he charged $250 for all the research and work and it came back in great shape.
So since your history with the cart is similar, my guess is that something catastrophic has happened to the suspension and hopefully Peter will be able to fix yours. My buddy owns this cart and hasn't had one bit of trouble with his. Go figure. Good luck and try to stay calm and zen about the whole process.
Hi,
Thanks for the reply. I can't really blame the tonearm, bunch of other cartridges are working OK with the AudioMod on my TT.
I guess I will send it to Soundsmith as well. I was trying to contact Yamamoto, no answer and dealer in Japan I bought cartridge from asked me if I have a clean stylus...
Yes, the Audiomods arm is very nice and had no part in my problems. Wish I hadn't been so quick to sell it. I'm sure Peter will be able to sort things out for you and you'll have a very fine cart when the journey is finished.
Well, I hope so. Not sure why I should get in the situation when I have to send a new cartridge for repair.
It's not like i bought a $10 part on Aliexpress.
Mine was essentially new also. Maybe twenty sides before it all went wrong. That's why I just walked away from it for a year. Then I calmed down and decided to get it fixed. Neither of us should have had this happen, but sometimes things are just beyond our control (no local dealer and lack of effective communications due to language barriers). I was determined to use this cartridge even if it did cost me more money in the long run.
If you decide to send it back to Yamamoto, they were very quick in returning it so that might be an option before sending it to Peter. My wait time for repair at Soundsmith was pretty long, but I was just happy to have the problem discovered and solved. Sorry for your problems, but at least one other person (me) had similar problems and they eventually worked out.
Yes, great that you have sorted it out.
Interestingly that there are at list a few other posts about "jumping" Yamamoto cartridges in the Lenco heaven forum. Could it be that all of mentioned cartridges have a faulty suspensions ?
Weird. Mine jumped right out of the groove with any bass instruments. Didn't know anybody else had this problem. I'll be interested to see of Peter finds the same problem with yours as he did with mine two years ago. Sounds like a case of good company having an issue with a product. Hope someone can figure this out since Yamamoto preamps and amps are made with such care and craftsmanship.
Craftsmanship, yes. Tube sockets and all kind of woodwork parts are amazing.
However what makes Mr. Yamamoto to use C3M driver designed to run at 15-16ma with less that 2 ma current and drive 300B with 100k source (A-09S) ?
Well WE91 was design like that, but they don't have a better tube.
Anyways, it is not related to the cartridge in question.
BTW, have you noticed that body of the YS-03 is designed the way that make cartridge setup very difficult : it is hard to see the stylus and cantilever ? Most manufacturers will make a cut in the front of the body to make cantilever visible from the front.
Well... the saga continues. I sent cartridge back to the JP dealer I bought it from (BTW very nice guy, really pleasure to deal with).
After short delay due to Christmas holidays I've got message from the dealer:
"Your cartridge is fixed. Yamamoto said that the cantilever was tilted"
Great ! I also ask to check with the Yamamoto what tonearms they are recommending and what tonearms they are use to test cartridge with...
First I got reply from the dealer :
" About a tonearm, I assume good match tonearm is for Medium compliance 25~15x10-6cm/dyne(1.0~2.0g)"
Not really very helpful, I again requested to get tonearm info fro Yamamoto, here it is:
"Yamamoto explained that The Yamamoto Sound reference tonearm is SAEC WE-506 long arm. Light weight class high compliance arm is difficult to pull full performance of Yamamoto cartridge out."
So, I asked is it correct that Yamamoto is using the only one long out of production tonearm to test the cartridge ?
" As long as Yamamoto who is founder of Yamamoto Sound Craft explained it, yes he said out of market old SAEC WE506, however the tonearm is still fame of tonearm and previous SAEC tonearm engineer provides their masterpiece maintenance service until now, also very rare, popular and expensive in second market. As I wrote to you that he mentioned "Light weight type high compliance arm is not matched with Yamamoto cartridge", I assume it means other type tonearm could be matched with it."
How come that I can set AudioMods arm with number of counterweights and headshell shims to work OK with anything from DL-103 (Copliance: 5x10-6cm/dyne (100Hz)) to high compliance MM cartridge but not the Yamamoto ?
Is the compliance figure on the Yamamoto web site has anything to do with reality (Compliance: 11 x 10-6 cm/dyn) ?
Interesting, if Yamamoto will decide to built cars will they only be useful on a bamboo covered roads in a limited weather conditions ?
Load : 1.2 ohms(I load mine with an exactly 1.2 OHM option on my moving coil transformer made for this particulary cartridge /for the younger crowd :SUT/ )
Tracking force/weight :1.8 g
/m
For those who want to know my moving coil transformer for the Yamamoto is a custom made Lundahl/high purity silver wire/permalloy lamination core!
/m
Yamamoto do supply there own SUT mono unit , pair required
SUT-02
Unless you are using some sort of ultra low mass headshell, I think you will find the Ortofon TA-110 is a medium to high mass tonearm. Its effective mass with the supplied headshell is 19-grams. Of course, the headshell's mass is 15.5-grams, so if you install a 7-gram headshell, its effective mass would be around 10.5-grams, still not a low mass tonearm. What headshell are you using?
Best regards,
John Elison
Their amps look like they get the bespoke treatment. Wood casework looks quite nice and top dollar.
By the looks of his lineup, that 1k cart may be his "budget" cart.
Great cartridges I have both versions( s & m )!
/m
M, can you please throw some light on how it sounds, have you compared it to any other carts ? Please say something more than just "great cartridge" :-)
Problem (IMHO) with audio asylum in general and the vinyl group in particular,some one will drop in and scream :" I hate that fu-ng cartridge " :so why bother to explain??
In my system DHT (300B/2A3/45)AudioNote speakers with an airtangent turntable and arm (latest incarnation)this
cartridge is as delicate as my other cartridges)EMT,Ortofons,Kisekis(early)Koetsus,Shelters.
Particulary on string quartets the Yamamoto will give a spooky reproduction of the placement of the players and their instrument!
So who will be the next in line...?
I HATE TAHAT FU-NG CARTRIDGE :.........................................(fill in the blanks)
m
Thanks M.
How is the PRAT (if you believe cartridges also affect PRAT) ?
I am also interested in this cartridge. It has a very low internal impedance which will probably require a lot of tweaking phono input impedance. I am pretty happy with my Zu DL-103 but who can just stop at a single cartridge?
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