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Thorens/Glanz/Miyajima. The Miyajima Premium mono cartridge was mounted on the Glanz first, with tracking at the recommended 3.5g and loading at 90 ohms. Its output of 0.9mV should make any MC phonostage comfortable. I put all of the Mapleshade products through their paces and repeated this process several times throughout the course of the review. This was no easy task given the high mass of the slate plinth. My initial setup of the table had it sitting on original vintage Sorbothane pucks (yes I’ve kept mine all these years) between the slate and Adona shelf. The Sorbothane pucks as I learned after switching to other devices had redeeming qualities but their biggest transgression was a marked loss of transparency from the midbass down [Sorbothane is weight-rated for optimum compliance and does wear out over time to mandate annual replacement – Ed].


Pierre Sprey had me remove the Adona shelf, place four Isoblocks directly on the Adona’s structural cross braces and lay the maple platform on these. Then the three brass Megamounts (very difficult to do by yourself) were carefully placed single point down, three points up between slate plinth and maple platform. Playing “Blues” from Hampton Hawes Quartet, Volume 3 [Contemporary C3547], the piano gained body and warmth throughout the entire frequency range in comparison to the Sorbothane pucks. However bass dynamics were slightly diminished and transient attacks not as sharp. I don’t think the Mapleshade products were a synergistic match with my Adona rack. Pierre intimated as much even before he shipped his kit. A friend of mine uses the very same Mapleshade support system under his slate-plinthed Garrard 401 but on a Mapleshade rack where he gets excellent results. To make a long story short, the most successful device I found for placement between the slate plinth and Adona shelf was a Mathew James knockoff of the discontinued Aurios Classic footers. These really allowed the table and arm to come into a more natural tonal balance, opening up the midbass and bass in particular and allowing the Glanz tonearm to show its true mettle.

Thorens/Glanz/Ikeda. Staying with the mono theme I switched carts to the Ikeda 9TT Mono. This is a huge jump in price from the Miyajima Premium mono and not a fair comparison. The Ikeda 9TT Mono is a fairly new product and I had the second one brought into the U.S. by Beauty of Sound serial # 0012. Whilst the Miyajima body is made of Ebony wood, the Ikeda has aluminum alloy. It's a low output 0.22mV moving coil with a double-layered duralumin cantilever, oval-shaped stylus and Permalloy core generator. The user’s guide is silent on loading. I asked importer Bill Demars and he emailed the factory. Their reply was that it's up to the user. Since it has a very low coil impedance of 2 ohms and the rule of thumb for loading an MC cartridge is ten to twenty times its coil impedance, one would expect a loading of between 20 and 40 ohms. The lowest I can go on my Doshi Alaap Purist preamp is 90 ohms so that's where I set it. This was a brand new cartridge and I had to put about 40 hours on it to break it in. The sonic signature of the Ikeda 9TT Mono cartridge was that of a modern highly resolving moving coil cartridge in the same league (and price point) as the Ikeda 9TT stereo cartridge which I have listened to a fair amount at Beauty of Sound. By contrast the Miyajima Premium mono has a full-bodied sound and tonal balance that reminds me of a first-class moving magnet with the added benefits that moving coil cartridges typically provide: greater presence, clarity and dynamics. The Ikeda is leaner but not objectionably so. I would place it halfway between the richest Koetsu and leanest Lyra carts.


The Ikeda's tracking was superb on the Glanz. On Art Farmer’s Farmers Market [Prestige 8203] the fast-paced cut had the arm/cartridge combination separate the complex interplay and sharp timing between trumpet, piano and rhythm section most impressively. The Ikeda 9TT Mono is less forgiving than the Miyajima on less well-recorded vintage mono. However on high-quality recordings such as Blue Note, Contemporary and Prestige everything is in order. It really strutted its stuff on Miles Davis All Stars Walkin’ [Prestige 7076] and easily surpassed the Miyajima for refinement, speed, dynamic shading and three-dimensionality. Still, midbass and bass weren't as weighty as the Miyajima. I suspect that the Ikeda might want to be loaded down even more so I add a cautionary note about my observations.


Some had trouble with the Miyajima's tracking of heavy bass modulation according to my own experience as well as word of mouth. This was even alluded to by Michael Fremer who mentioned that the new top-line Miyajima Zero mono has improved bass. The Glanz is especially sensitive to the chain of materials in the mechanical grounding path. When I had the wrong footer under the turntable, the sound could get a bit raw or edgy. Once I got the mechanical grounding path optimized with the Mathew James footers, there was no such problem. Record after record sounded right. Mr. Hamada actually uses and recommends a stainless steel armboard for the Glanz like he does on a customized vintage JVC JLT-77 table. In the U.S. the JVC QL-10 had some following but googling turned up nothing on the JVC JLT-77deck. It probably never made it to the U.S.


To further increase the rigidity of the connection between walnut armboard and Glanz arm, I was able to successfully employ Mapleshade Nanomounts between the underside of the armboard and turntable chassis as well as between the round Glanz mounting plate and upper side of the armboard. Listening to Concerto de Aranjuez on the mono release of Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain [Columbia CL 1480], Miles’ trumpet was slightly richer and image focus tighter. This was a worthwhile addition although installing the Nanomounts requires care in placing them so they didn't dislodge once I tightened them down just snugly. I switched back and forth between Ikeda/Miyajima several times which reinforced my observations. The Ikeda has delicacy and finesse beyond the Miyajima but the latter whilst less informative has a weightiness I found very appealing. It's also very good value.


Thorens/Glanz/Ortofon Meister Silver. To get to the heart of the Glanz I had my Ortofon RMG-309 arm mounted on a Thorens board predrilled for the RMG-309 as sourced from Taiwanese eBay seller jakehung. For the Glanz a woodworker friend cut and drilled an armboard from solid walnut. Now I could relatively quickly switch between Ortofon and Glanz arms, then swap my Ortofon SPU Meister Silver stereo cart between the two. The arm leads plugged into the Ortofon SPU T-1 step-up and out into the MM input of my Doshi Alaap Purist preamp. The Ortofon Meister on the Glanz had a very rich solid sound. Playing the title cut of Sonny Rollins' The Bridge [RCA APL-0859] had all the intensity along with a real red-meat beefy quality. Bass didn't seem to go as low as with my Nottingham Mentor/Benz LP-S cart combo but it was clean and rhythmically tight. I attributed this more to the better bass of the Benz LP-S and Nottingham Mentor than to any weakness of the Glanz. The Thorens TD-124 is not known for the same robust bass performance as its vintage competitor the Garrard 301/401.