Analog Corner

While stage size, transient clarity—and, especially, transient speed—were noted when I played my usual reference LPs recorded in concert at Carnegie Hall (Tony, Harry, the Weavers; footnote 2), it was two recordings of solo piano that demonstrated the Kai's dynamic and tracking abilities: Vol.1 of a series of direct-to-disc recordings of Beethoven's piano sonatas by Bernard Roberts (LP, Nimbus D/C 901; does anyone have a spare Vol.2 they'd care to send me?—footnote 3)—and John Lill performing works by Schumann on a restored 1964 Steinway: the Fantasy in C, Op.17; Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op.26; and Kinderszenen, Op.15 (2 LPs, Green Room PRO 4001/2).

The Beethoven, a studio recording of the late 1970s, brings the piano into the listener's room; the Schumann, recorded by the legendary Tony Faulkner (Green Room Productions is his company) in London's Henry Wood Hall, a former church, brings you to the concert hall. The latter was recorded in 2003 using a pair of tubed Neumann M50 microphones into an all-tube board designed by Tim de Paravicini, and then to a Studer A80 analog deck modified by him. (It was also recorded in 24-bit/176kHz digital).

I don't know if the vinyl edition of the John Lill recording, mastered by Stan Ricker and pressed at RTI, is still in print, but if not, it deserves reissue using the original metal parts (which I bet are still at RTI). And you deserve to hear it. It probably didn't sell well, in part because Faulkner was clearly ahead of his time in releasing this in 2004, before the vinyl revival had gathered steam.

The Kai managed well with the direct-to-disc Beethoven, which is difficult to track; it produced intensely clean, fast, properly percussive initial transients followed by moderately generous sustain and appropriate decay, given the dry studio acoustic. As with the Lyra Atlas, the Kai's accent was on the attack. For more generous sustain and more "wood," see, for example, the Lyra Etna.

That said, there was still more wood and less "tinkle" than that description might lead you to conclude. With the Nimbus set, the Kai's rhythm'n'pace, macrodynamic explosiveness, and subtle microdynamic gradations would keep many rock-loving, classical-music–hating audiophiles in their seats and listening.

The Green Room recording produced an appropriately warm and spacious overall picture, and the Kai did an especially good job of separating the piano's image from the reverberant bath, while preserving the initial transients that define the music's rhythmic structure.

After a few weeks of listening, I decided—because of the Kai's slightly cool overall sound—to reduce the cartridge loading to around 40 ohms. While there are lusher-sounding cartridges out there—particularly in the lower midrange and upper midbass, where the Kai was somewhat lean—with this loading it produced string tones sufficiently lush and rich to make me almost swoon during the fourth movement of Mahler's Symphony 9, with Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Berlin Philharmonic on a recent reissue of a deservedly legendary original (2 LPs, EMI/Electric Recording Company ASD 596/7).

The Kai's upper octaves, though airy, transparent, fully extended, and cleanly presented, were never noticeably sharp or etched—unless the recording itself was. Usually, when you lean out the lower midbass, the reward is a tighter, more rhythmically lithe and nimble musical line. That was the case with the Kai.

At audio shows, we've all become saturated with the same old demo tracks from Patricia Barber and Diana Krall. That's not their fault. Premonition Records has reissued Barber's albums in two-LP editions, mastered by Doug Sax from the original digital sources, and the new edition of Companion (Premonition 90762-1) is the best I've heard. (If you're getting only one of this series, Companion, with a "modern cool" version of Sonny and Cher's "The Beat Goes On," would be a good choice.) The Kai's rendering of Michael Arnopol's double bass perfectly straddled the line between nimbleness and bass weight. I could hear and feel his fingers tugging on the strings, and the pleasingly deep, warm result. The Kai's overall bass performance was deep, fast, dynamic, and well controlled: punchy but not overdamped. Its expression of bass was full but not overfull—it never sounded like a subwoofer turned up too high.

The Kai excelled with rock. I compared four earlier versions of Led Zeppelin's IV with Jimmy Page's latest remastering, at 24/96 (LP, Atlantic R1-536184; footnote 4). The Kai rocked out, producing tight, nimble bass, cymbal splashes that were properly grating and edgy, and, in "Stairway to Heaven," acoustic-guitar harmonic luxury, though with the accent on precise transient attacks.

Conclusion: The Ikeda Sound Labs Kai is a world-class moving-coil cartridge with very low output and a low compliance. It must be carefully mated with a low-noise, high-output phono preamplifier and a tonearm massive enough to produce a resonant frequency below 13Hz. Those requirements met, the Kai delivered prodigious dynamics, expansive soundstages, electrostatic-like transparency, fast and clean transients, and about as much detail and overall excitement as any cartridge I've heard. Its reproduction of harmonic colors was slightly lean, and its tonal balance pushed toward cool, but its overall sound was neutral enough that the final result you get will depend more on the rest of your system than on the Kai. If you want similar but somewhat warmer, more fully fleshed out sound, consider the Ortofon Anna.

I spent a long time with the Ikeda Kai, and genuinely enjoyed all of it. It correctly performed all of a cartridge's housekeeping chores—excellent tracking, superquiet groove tracing, a complete absence of mechanical artifacts—and its low residual coloration and fleet-footed overall sound made for many evenings of satisfying, exhilarating listening.

Follow-Up: Ortofon A95 moving-coil cartridge
With the Ikeda Kai ($8500) in the Kuzma 4Point tonearm and the Ortofon A95 ($6500; See "Analog Corner," May 2015; footnote 5) in the Continuum Audio Labs Cobra arm, and both arms mounted on the Continuum Caliburn turntable, it wasn't difficult to switch between them. But it wasn't instantaneous—I also had to switch from Ypsilon's MC-26L step-up transformer to their MC-16L. (Actually, the optimal step-up for the A95's output of 0.23mV would probably have been Ypsilon's MC-20L, but I don't have one. Ypsilon's Demetris Backlavas assured me that the MC-16L was sufficient to properly drive the VPS-100.)

Yarlung Records (www.yarlungrecords.com) will soon release on vinyl an AAA recording, Vanish, by the innovative percussion group Smoke and Mirrors. Currently available in various digital editions, the album is musically varied and thoroughly entertaining. I recorded three-minute-long samples from it at 24-bit/96kHz using various A/D converters, the Continuum Caliburn turntable, Ypsilon's VPS-100 phono preamp and MC-16L step-up, and the Ortofon A95 cartridge (footnote 6).

I also recorded 24/96 samples using the Ikeda Kai, and the differences were striking. The A95's tonal balance was warmer, and its reproduction of textures was more supple and inviting. That might come as a surprise to those who found Ortofon's A90 to sound cool, but the A95 was designed to produce some of the more expensive Anna's warmth while retaining the A90's speed and effervescence.

The track from Vanish that can be heard at AnalogPlanet.com features a rapid xylophone run buried in the backdrop. It's a bumpy, icy cool, sharply lit ride. The A95 didn't at all soften or slow that ride, probably in great part due to the groove-tracing abilities of its Replicant stylus, but it did register the quickly changing harmonic envelopes produced by each mallet stroke.

The Kai registered the percussive element with greater ease, speed, and precision, but so shortchanged the harmonics that, until I switched to the $2000-less-costly A95, I didn't recognize the sound as being produced by a xylophone.

On the other hand, the A95's overall sound couldn't match the Kai's dynamic authority and just plain slam, or its dramatic soundstaging, or its ability to separate instruments on the stage—that's an area where the more expensive cartridges, including the Anna ($9500), excel.

The A95's stage, which I once heard as impressively wide and deep, now sounded compacted by comparison. Then again, by comparison, the Kai is more m&m shell, the A95 more rich, chocolatey center. The massed strings in the EMI/ERC reissue of the Barbirolli Mahler recording, for instance, produced a fullness and richness that the Kai couldn't, quite, while the Kai's soundstaging had a visual scale and drama that the A95's didn't. Quite.

Which was more "accurate"? Which was more "musical"? I don't know. When making such comparisons, the important thing is to let your ears acclimate and adjust, just as you should when comparing speakers. Otherwise, like moths to a flame, your ears too easily gravitate to the brightest sound in the room.

With the Kai in the system, I missed the A95's tonal and textural expression. With the A95 in the system, I missed the Kai's dynamic explosiveness, huge soundstage, and 3D imaging.

DS Audio's DS-W1 optical cartridge arrived the other day. I immediately installed it on a second Kuzma 4Point arm, on Sperling Audio's turntable (review in the works), and then ended up missing what that cartridge did when I listened to the Kai or A95—not that there weren't things those two did that the DS-W1 didn't.

To put an end to my confusion, I fired up my Meridian Digital Music Server—and was suddenly inspired to clean my room.

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Footnote 2: Tony Bennett, At Carnegie Hall (2 LPs, Columbia/Analogue Productions AAPP 823), Harry Belafonte, Belafonte at Carnegie Hall (2 LPs, RCA Living Stereo LPS-6006/Analogue Productions AAPF-6006), The Weavers, Reunion at Carnegie Hall 1963 (single-sided 45rpm LPs, Vanguard/Classic 2150).

Footnote 3: I have this set, Mikey, but no, you can't have it.—John Atkinson

Footnote 4: It's a tough job, but someone has to do it; read my review at Analogplanet.com.