Another Giant has fallen

[Ben (BJ)]

Another Giant has fallen!!! Sad day for Analogue and Vinyl users

It's with a very heavy heart, I sadly have to report that Koetsu is no more!
Having had a conversation with Koetsu's longest standing Distributor in the UK, Absolute Sounds, the simplified story is, that the family don't want the business to continue outwith their hands, and don't want to risk tarnishing the brands reputation and legacy by selling to an outside entity, which is honorable and admirable, in this day in age, too many originally family owned businesses have drifted from what was originally intended, take Gucci as an example, now a massive corporation with no family members involved, and dare I say long lost their original direction.
So please savour and cherish your Koetsu's as they are now heirlooms from another era, on a brighter not Absolute Sounds have established an arrangement with a trusted Cartridge repairer/rebuilder who they can send cartridges to for quality work which will be returned with frequency response graphs after thorough testing.
RIP
Koetsu

 

[Family_Dog]

That is so sad but a fully understandable decision as so many brands have chosen the wayward path since having sold out to larger corporations and now produce unadulterated junk compared to their original high-quality offerings.

I shall break the news gently to my Koetsu Black.


-F_D

 

[Agaton Sax]

I do not know. From the Far East now comes a story that workers are negotiating with the Sugano family to buy out Koetsu. The theory is that the original Sugano's son was in the 80s and frail when he died. There is no way he could have built all the Koetsus and handled repairs all by himself.

I hope we do not see Koetsu becoming a new corporation and mass-producing these things. I have an original Sugano senior Gold that was rebuilt by the Koetsuu factory using original parts so should not be able to have an opinion.

I have a one-off built by Skollie. Then he died and I don't use it anymore for fear of damaging it. I have a remarkable JVC from the 80s that is unrepairable if it breaks, so use it sparingly. I have a van den Hul and he, himself has apparently stopped building so I use that sparingly. Now the Koetsu shall have its stylus guard put on! Helga, who built the original EMT carts retired so EMTs are now built by Thales in Switzerland, and boy what an improvement. A remarkable cart.

Maybe the young ones are better than we give them credit for?