View Full Version : Which Ikeda 9 Cartridge is this?
I recently acquired an Ikeda IT-345 tonearm and it came with an old Ikeda 9 Cartridge, the kind without a cantilever. I believe there were several variants of this cartridge with different specs. The only other identifying mark are these Japanese characters on the side. Any body know what they mean? Also any experiences on setting up these carts?
It seems a bit skittish at 1.75g VTF better at 2.0g,but would be good to find what the manufacturer's recommendation was. Also, it needs the arm setting very low to maintain a VTA with the arm parallel to the record.
Would appreciate any info any body has or can point me to.
25710
Edit: The title should say Ikeda, damned auto-spell!
It's an Ikeda 9C III, a "canteleverless" cartridge, as you say. Think 'Decca' but a moving-coil design. It's a superb cartridge. :)
I have one, and use it mounted in an Ikeda headshell on Ikeda-modified Ortofon 12" arm: the RMG 309i arm, tracking at 2.0g VTF.
Some more information for you:
Output (at 5cm/s 45 deg at 1kHz): 0.17mV
Coil impedance: 3 Ohm
Dynamic compliance (at 1000Hz (!), maybe a typo?): 6. 10^-6 cm/dyne
Frequency response: 10Hz - 45kHz (no tolerance range given)
Separation (at 1kHz): 27dB
Mass: 14.5g
montesquieu
30-03-2019, 20:01
I recently acquired an Ikeda IT-345 tonearm and it came with an old Ikeda 9 Cartridge, the kind without a cantilever. I believe there were several variants of this cartridge with different specs. The only other identifying mark are these Japanese characters on the side. Any body know what they mean? Also any experiences on setting up these carts?
It seems a bit skittish at 1.75g VTF better at 2.0g,but would be good to find what the manufacturer's recommendation was. Also, it needs the arm setting very low to maintain a VTA with the arm parallel to the record.
Would appreciate any info any body has or can point me to.
25710
Edit: The title should say Ikeda, damned auto-spell!
Great cartridges, if hard to align in an arm because the stylus is quite far back in the body. I had the 9C III which I sold to Barry. I now have the later 9TT which has a more conventional cantilever - the cantileverless design stopped when Ikeda-san retired and sold up the business in 2011, wisdom has it that unlike the arms, which he designed but construction of which was farmed out in full or in part, he manufactured all the cartridges personally.
This is certainly a model 9C, but there were quite a few versions made and no easy way to track them, I don't think it's a III, the gold body suggests it may be another variant. Ikeda also made variants for Cello and for Jeff Rowland, the latter was gold bodied but also signed Jeff Rowland so it isn't one of those.
As for the characters, it's actually a single compound ideograph - a single word really and originally Chinese, the Kanji character used in Japanese expresses the same idea but is generally not pronounced the same way - that means something like highest position, top rank or utmost point. According to the wife anyway.
Welcome to the Ikeda club BTW I have a late (chrome) IT-345 CR1 as well as an early IT-407.
Edit - I found this was happiest in the 12in Ikeda arm at 2.5g. It's heavy though about 37g in its headshell.
The Ikeda variant made for Jeff Roland was the 'Decca-like' cantileverless design.
But I've just noticed Clive's Ikeda is gold coloured, whereas my C9 III (ex 'montesquieu' - thanks Tom :)) has a silver-grey finish. Looking at mine, the lack of a cantilever is obvious.
Lawrence001
30-03-2019, 23:42
When I saw the title I thought Ikea had made a major move upwards in the vinyl stakes from record storage to high quality cartridges [emoji23]
Sent from my BLN-L21 using Tapatalk
When I saw the title I thought Ikea had made a major move upwards in the vinyl stakes from record storage to high quality cartridges [emoji23]
Sent from my BLN-L21 using Tapatalk
Title now corrected! ;)
Thanks for the useful information chaps. Judging by the way my cartridge performs the specs will not be far from those of the 9C III above.
I spent last evening fiddling with the set up and it sounds very good indeed. Very similar character to Isamu Ikeda's earlier Fidelity Research FR-7 but with a weightier and faster sound. Certainly one to add to the collection, which I had been working so hard to reduce recently. :rolleyes:
I think I have solved the mystery.
After some time spent with Google I have now found out that it is an Ikeda 9 "Kiwame". It was apparently reviewed in Stereophile in 1993. Output is 0.17 mV same as the C MkIII but VTF is 1.8 - 2.5 g with 2.0 being optimum. That pretty much tallies with what I've found in practice.
According to Google Translate "Kiwame" means "Fine", which is line with Tom's information above.
It certainly has to be a fairly rare cartridge considering how little information there is on it out there. Not bad for a freebie that came with a tonearm as "not tested or warranted" and apparently in storage for the past 15 years.
Yes, it would appear to be an Ikeda 9REX 'Kiwame': https://audiocirc.com/2016/06/12/moving-iron/.
I didn't know Ikeda had designed another cantileverless MC cartridge. Let us know how you get on with it! :)
Found this on a 2012 thread on What's Best Audio and Video Forum:
"I always thought the Kiwami was the "ultimate" version of the 9Rex and was intended for the domestic Japaneses market. The Japanese/Chinese character on the body of the Kiwami version literally means ultimate or summit"
I have a copy of the February 1993 Stereophile magazine on its way which apparently carries a review of the cartridge.
Gradually getting there. It's amazing how much information is out there if you persevere.
montesquieu
04-04-2019, 21:28
Found this on a 2012 thread on What's Best Audio and Video Forum:
"I always thought the Kiwami was the "ultimate" version of the 9Rex and was intended for the domestic Japaneses market. The Japanese/Chinese character on the body of the Kiwami version literally means ultimate or summit"
I have a copy of the February 1993 Stereophile magazine on its way which apparently carries a review of the cartridge.
Gradually getting there. It's amazing how much information is out there if you persevere.
Truly great find.
Thanks Tom. Your wife's translation of the ideograph was pretty spot on.
The Stereophile review was very positive as you would expect for a cart that cost $2500 in 1993. It confirmed the Kiwame as the top of the range, above the Rex or 'R' model. The manufacturer's recommended VTF is 1.5g unlike the 2.0g for the rest of the range and load impedance as 3 ohms. The reviewer did find that it responded well to higher VTF and load impedance.
Having played around with various parameters I have now settled on 2g, 3 ohms and VTA with the top of the arm tube horizontal. I love how it presents the music, very enjoyable.
Any chance of providing a link to the Stereophile review Clive?
Any chance of providing a link to the Stereophile review Clive?
No, sorry, it's not on line, it's a hard copy of the magazine. If you pm me your email I will scan it for you.
No, sorry, it's not on line, it's a hard copy of the magazine. If you pm me your email I will scan it for you.
Thanks Clive - that's very generous of you. I'll send you my e-mail address as a PM.
You really have found a wonderful cartridge! What pre/SUT do you use and what impedance have you loaded the cartridge with?
Out of curiousity I looked up Ikeda cartridges on vinylengine.com , and to my surprise ALL the cartridges listed were cantileverless designs. The most recent designs are not listed there and I think they now use a cantilever, but I was surprised to see 14 Ikeda canteleverless cartridge designs. https://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge_database.php?m=Ikeda&mod=&t=any&sort=2&Search=Search&sty=&ovlo=&ovhi=&can=&dclo=&dchi=&stid=&masslo=&masshi=¬es=&prlo=&prhi=
Cheers
Barry
What pre/SUT do you use and what impedance have you loaded the cartridge with?
Out of curiousity I looked up Ikeda cartridges on vinylengine.com , and to my surprise ALL the cartridges listed were cantileverless designs. The most recent designs are not listed there and I think they now use a cantilever, but I was surprised to see 14 Ikeda canteleverless cartridge designs. https://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge_database.php?m=Ikeda&mod=&t=any&sort=2&Search=Search&sty=&ovlo=&ovhi=&can=&dclo=&dchi=&stid=&masslo=&masshi=¬es=&prlo=&prhi=
Cheers
Barry
I use the A23 Homage T1 which is designed to be a match for SPUs etc and is therefore somewhere in the region of the recommended 3 ohms and then into the MM input of the Giscours or the VIDA.
My long term strategy is to downsize the system to one TT/arm combo with a small selection of cartridges with similar mass, compliance and impedance and yet sonically different. To date they were going to be SPU Gold Reference, Fidelity Research FR-7, Miyajima Zero and now I think I am going to have to add the Ikeda 9 Kiwame.
It is amazing there were over 14 iterations of the design, and it would seem that the Kiwame was the end of the line before they produced the integrated headshell design.
montesquieu
07-04-2019, 21:35
It is amazing there were over 14 iterations of the design, and it would seem that the Kiwame was the end of the line before they produced the integrated headshell design.
As I understand it, there is no 'they', all of these cantileverless cartridges were hand built by Isamu Ikeda personally. Production was constrained for that reason.
As I understand it, there is no 'they', all of these cantileverless cartridges were hand built by Isamu Ikeda personally. Production was constrained for that reason.
So who makes the current range? Is it only Ikeda san? If it is, then that would explain the high price and limited availability.
montesquieu
07-04-2019, 21:51
So who makes the current range? Is it only Ikeda san? If it is, then that would explain the high price and limited availability.
Ikeda-san retired in 2011 in his late 80s and sold off Ikeda Sound Labs to the organisation that (as I understand it, from a Japanese cartridge vendor I was in contact with a few years back) used to manufacture the tonearms. They changed to a more conventional cartridge design (according to this bloke) because they no longer have access to the components required to make the old ones. He did a bit of promo for them as part of the handover deal and there are a couple of interviews on the web from 2011-2012.
He also told me Ikeda-san had died not long after selling the company, I don't know if this is true or not it certainly wasn't reported anywhere in the English language web. If still alive he'd be in his mid-90s by now. You would have expected the hifi press to have picked it up though if this was the case.
Ikeda-san retired in 2011 in his late 80s and sold off Ikeda Sound Labs to the organisation that (as I understand it, from a Japanese cartridge vendor I was in contact with a few years back) used to manufacture the tonearms. They changed to a more conventional cartridge design (according to this bloke) because they no longer have access to the components required to make the old ones. He did a bit of promo for them as part of the handover deal and there are a couple of interviews on the web from 2011-2012.
He also told me Ikeda-san had died not long after selling the company, I don't know if this is true or not it certainly wasn't reported anywhere in the English language web. If still alive he'd be in his mid-90s by now. You would have expected the hifi press to have picked it up though if this was the case.
Indeed - especially in any Western review of one of the current range of designs. Strange.
He also told me Ikeda-san had died not long after selling the company, I don't know if this is true or not it certainly wasn't reported anywhere in the English language web. If still alive he'd be in his mid-90s by now. You would have expected the hifi press to have picked it up though if this was the case.
A US Ikeda dealer confirmed he was still with us in 2012, see Post number 18 in this thread:
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/new-ikeda-9tt-stereo-cartridge.5923/
He certainly was not someone who rested on his laurels with all those continued refinements to the cantileverless design.
montesquieu
08-04-2019, 09:13
Yes my contact in Japan said he died soon after the handover so that does’t contradict ... if he was 86 then as stated in the post he’d be 93 now if still around, too old to be making cartridges!
Back to back the 9TT was/is my preference over the 9C which is why I kept it, it’s quite different though to the earlier 9 series, to me it sounds similar to my old Audio Note Io ... with it’s short cantilever, silver coils and very low impedance and output it’s somewhat similar in design as well and close to too to the last of the Fidelity Research cartridges. Ikeda used silver coils before Kondo did. The 9TT is slightly more real world than the Io though at 2 ohms rather than 1 and 0.16mV output.
The 9TT is a remarkable all round performer where the 9C majored on impact and dynamics perhaps at the (slight) comparative expense of tone and soundstage, which are more important to me than impact given my listening. 9C to me sounded like a massively souped up Decca. I also found the 9TT tracks a little better which you’d expect would be a benefit of a suspensioned cantilever however short. But at this level it’s all about preference. They are all great cartridges.
Out of my current stable the Miyajima Madake remains my favourite music maker/emotion communicator though both Ikedas (old and new) do slightly best it for detail.
It would be good to hear the different Ikedas back to back one day. We will have to have an Ikeda cart bake-off.
montesquieu
08-04-2019, 10:50
Could be fun :)
I’m currently on the hunt for an Ikeda9 Mono - silly price at retail but on the whole mono cartridges don’t get heavy use and are a safe bet second hand. I just missed one in Greece at a very reasonable price.
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