Koetsu Tiger Eye Platinum MC Phono Cartridge Delivers Analog Performance That Will Leave You Speechless: Ultra-Rare, Fanciful Stone Body Delivers Mythical Sound and Sublime Detail

The highest levels of analog playback generate a sonic and emotional mysticism impossible to describe in words, no matter the language. It's a sensation you simply must experience, and once you do, will leave you with constant wonder. The inimitable Koetsu Tiger Eye Platinum MC phono cartridge inspires such feelings and makes such blissful musical feats possible.

Tiger Eye Platinum features among the rarest, most fanciful stone bodies to ever grace a phono cartridge. Of course, calling this a mere cartridge doesn't do this miraculous-sounding instrument justice. Peel your eyes away from its jewel-like beauty for a moment and view it as your permanent personal-seat license for a fifth-row, dead-center perspective on the world's most treasured recordings. The soulful, immediate, natural, and thoroughly absorbing performance you'll both hear and see – courtesy of pinpoint-precise focus, architecturally rendered dimensions, even-order balances, sublime harmonics, and true-to-scale imaging – is honestly better than what you'll find in almost any venue.

Indeed, this ultra-special cartridge invites you to dim the lights, pour a glass of Bowmore 25-year-old, close your eyes, and escape to special places very few have ever had the privilege to enjoy. Stay for as long as you like. Hand-crafted with a scare stone body that contributes to the sonic mystique, Tiger Eye Platinum features a hardness and rigidity that make it a superior tracker. Silver-clad six-nines copper wiring (99.9999% pure), rare platinum-alloy magnets, and a precision-ground stylus complete an opulent cartridge that exists to deliver the sort of musical expressiveness and analog sorcery upon which myths are created.

Deserving of Its Heroic Reputation Among Audiophiles
Koetsu cartridges don't require any fancy promotion or exaggerated typecasting. They stand alone for what they represent: The zenith of analog sound. These reverential musical instruments are all about musical transcendence and transformation. Indeed, while some listeners will inevitably demand how Koetsu justifies its pricing, our reply is simple: Once you listen, you'll hear and understand everything. Questions and doubts immediately melt away. All that's left behind is music distinguished with utmost ease, liquidity, vibrancy, clarity, responsiveness, and focus. The kind that leaves you wondering just how much detail, information, and texture you've missed on records you've heard hundreds of times.

Taking You to the Extreme Limits of Analog Performance
Unsurpassed quality and superior performance never come cheap. By its definition, "best" applies to a very select and extremely small sample size. While not everyone will be fortunate enough to experience the thrills wrought by a Koetsu cartridge mining vinyl's grooves and making beautiful music, all audiophiles relate to – and crave – the idea of the reference-setting imaging, three-dimensionality, supple harmonic richness, and tonal elegance that they effortlessly produce. The difference is that such sought-after characteristics aren't just starry-eyed ideas or goals with Koetsu. They're reality. And with a Koetsu, they're your reality. Welcome to analog paradise.

Carrying on a Proud Tradition of Precision and Perfection
Founded in the 1970s by Yoshiaki Sugano – a multi-skilled boxer, sword maker, painter, metallurgist, and Toyota executive that held a special love for hi-fi audio – and named after Honami Koetsu, a 17th-century Japanese artist and calligrapher, Koetsu prizes tradition, purity, and perfection. A direct descendant of the medieval Koetsu, Sugano demanded his cantilevers be built of a "special" iron custom-made by a northern Japanese university that used a secret process. After receiving pre-aged rubber suspensions and rosewood bodies from other craftsman, Sugano painstakingly hand-built each cartridge in the same manner a legendary violin maker obsesses over a wood's finite grain and age. Koetsu cartridges stood out not only for their transparent sound and exotic materials, but for their elegant appearance. Today, Sugano's son, Fumihiko, carries on the proud legacy.

Body: Tiger-eye Stone
Type: moving coil
Coil wiring: silver-plated copper
Magnet: platinum
Cantilever: boron
Output: .3mV
Frequency range: 20Hz-100kHz
Channel separation: 25dB/1kHz
Inner impedance: 5 ohms
Channel balance: .5dB/1kHz
Recommended impedance: 30 ohms
Weight: 12.5g
Compliance: 5x10-6cm/dyne at 100Hz
Recommended Tracking Force: 1.8-2.0g
Recommended Load: 80-1,000 Ohms