Which Ikeda 9 Cartridge is this?

[CliveG]

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/threa...artridge.5923/

He certainly was not someone who rested on his laurels with all those continued refinements to the cantileverless design.

[montesquieu]

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.

[CliveG]

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]

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.