Kiseki PurpleHeart NS Moving-Coil Phono Cartridge
Brinkmann7/2020
Many years ago, when my original Kiseki PurpleHeart Saphhire moving-coil cartridge finally expired after several years of faithful service, a lot of the magic in my audio system disappeared.
I purchased it several decades ago, based on the strong recommenda-tion of my local dealer at the time, dB Audio, and a quite favor-able mini-review in a moving-coil cartridge survey in TAS (Issue 34, Summer 1984). HP found it to be “a great cartridge” and remarked on its ability to produce a “very, very wide and deep soundstage,” as well as its excellence at reproducing low-level in-formation in complex passages. He also praised its neutrality and transparency.
I hadn’t planned on such a splurge, but I trusted the dealer, and after hearing it I had to have it. My Kiseki was set up expertly by John Hunter (who eventually moved on to Sumiko and later to REL). To say I was in heaven with its performance would be an understatement. Here was a moving-coil cartridge of moderate-ly low output (0.4mV) that had a captivating harmonic richness without any sacrifice in overall transient speed and clarity, along with an ability to dig deep into the groves to extract fine details.
Click here to download the 3 page article from The Absolute Sound magazine July/August.