Sony Yoshihisa Mori

Materialsammlung

Mr. Yoshihisa Mori (1941 – 2018) hat für Sony in vielen wichtigen Technologien eine Schlüsselrolle gespielt:

• Tonabnehmer
• CD
• SACD ("Mr. SACD")

From the blog of Giladt Tiefenbrun:

http://blogs.linn.co.uk/giladt/2012/05/the-ultimate-audiophile-pilgrimage.php

Mori-san began his career as a tonearm and cartridge designer at Grace / NHK Laboratories, before being recruited by Sony in 1973 to lead the engineering team at the Home Audio Group, where he remained for the next 27 years. Sony was at the peak of its engineering prowess and global influence. A glorious list of audio engineering achievements followed, including many best-selling turntables, tonearms and cartridges, tape decks, tape recorders and dictaphones. Oh yeah, and the Sony Walkman. And the Compact Disc Player.

Grace

• F9

Final Audio

Er entwickelte für die Firma Final Audio einen Tonabnehmer

http://final-audio-design.com/en/about

1974 final is established

Final was established in 1974 by the late Kanemori Takai. The first real product it released was a cartridge designed by Yoshihisa Mori, who was renowned for his cartridge designs. It had a groundbreaking figure eight air-core coil with a cantilever cut from a one-carat diamond. There was no influence from adhesive or an iron core; it produced extremely clear sound, and was regarded highly.

Sony Sound Tec

Später arbeitete er bei der Sony Sound Tec Corporation.

• XL-88D
• XL-70 posting from J. Carr
• Platte spielendes Modellauto

From user Axel on The Vintageknob:

All MM and MC XL cartridges, HA-T1, and later on all the "MU" and StudioLabo series plus the famed & outlandish (but Invisibilia) SUP drivers / SEM series in the mid 90s. The Sound Tec Corp. was located at 3-9-17 Nishigotanda, Shinagawa-Ku in Tokyo and the man behind the Figure 8 / XL-55 series was Yoshihisa Mori, who started designing tonearms and cartridges at Grace before joining Sony, heading the Sound Tec division until c. 1986. I believe Mr Mori also participated regularly to the editorial dept. of the Sony ES Review corporate magazine (of which I own all issues). The engineering base and manufacturing of the XL-55 /44 /33 (sans "L") was handed over JP niche manufacturer Final Audio (aka Takai Laboratory Inc.) for ultra-priced versions (in the 200k¥ range, and above) just as the XL-MC7 was rebadged (as "Carnegie One") by Mark Levinson / Madrigal at about the same time. Sound Tec seems to have finally vanished (or been absorbed /reshuffled /etc) after the SUP / SEM adventure, c. 1996.

Benz

From user Mosin at Audiogon:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/thoughts-on-the-madrigal-carnegie-one

During the reorganization of Benz, a collaboration was arranged between Van den Hul, Mori and Lukaschek. Lukaschek already worked for Benz, and Mori was well-regarded for his contribution in the development of the Sony XL55 cartridge which employed a novel coil. Everyone knows about A.J.Van den Hul, of course. The work of the men resulted in the production of the Benz Silver, the Van den Hul One, and the Madrigal Carnegie One.

Like the Sony moving coil, the Carnegie One has an unusual figure eight coil design. Another feature is that the Madrigal has a layered cantilever made from carbon fiber, beryllium, and aluminum. No other cartridge that I am aware of ever used this exact cantilever composition. The cartridge shares a common tip with Van den Hul models, the true line contact that Van den Hul designed.

Like the Sony, many examples tend to be low-riders over time. That said, if it doesn't ride low in the groove now you will probably be okay with it. If it does ride low, however, take a pass because the body is not easily opened for repair. That is the only mechanical downside that comes to mind. I own two, and one came as a low-rider. Check it before you buy it.

How does it sound? Everyone has a flavor he prefers, but reviewers at the time considered the Madrigal Carnegie One to be one of the most neutral cartridges ever made, and most of those guys ended up with one in his stockpile. I find the sound to be very clean, but not overly exciting. Still, it is a nice cartridge worth owning that is still capable of beating the performance of a lot of today's offerings.

If you get it, it has a Dynamic Compliance of 17 x 10-6 cm/Dyne, so it will work well with a wide range of tonearms. As far as VTF goes, mine seems to like 1.6-1.7 grams. I haven't used it in awhile, so I can't tell you exactly where I used it last, but it in that range.

Hope this helps,

Win

From user Avantgarde-HK at www.hiendy.com:

http://www.hiendy.com/hififorum/forum.php?mod=redirect&goto=findpost&ptid=98383&pid=2497271

Background on company and ruby generator: In the 1980s Ernst Benz developed his line of moving coil cartridges in conjunction with Sony in Japan and AJ van den Hul of the Netherlands. These pickups were immediately recognized for their high quality and brought to market under the Benz Micro name as well as the Madrigal Carnegie 1. The Madrigal Carnegie 2 was the first cartridge made by Benz to use a ruby core generator. In the early 90s Benz came out with their own ruby generator cartridge aptly named the Ruby. The advantage of a non-ferrous versus iron core to wind the coil around was a purer signal in the magnetic flux field due to elimination of unwanted eddy currents.

From user jcarr at Vinyl Asylum:

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/vinyl/messages/72/723119.html

The original Madrigal Carnegie I was indeed based on a Sony design, but although the generator portion undoubtedly had an air-core figure-of-8 coil which was like that of the XL-55 family, I believe that it featured polepiece-less (yokeless) magnetics, based on the later double ring-magnet repulsion designs (like the XL-MC5), rather than the older polepiece generation (XL-44, 55, 88). Although the Carnegie 1 was quite an advanced and sophisticated design for its day, I was told that it was rather tricky and demanding to produce and rebuild, and so the later Carnegie 2 was changed into a completely different (and much more conventional) design, which did not incorporate Sony design IP.

From Steve Marsh on SixMoons:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/benz/1.html

Background on company and ruby generator: In the 1980s Ernst Benz developed his line of moving coil cartridges in conjunction with Sony in Japan and AJ van den Hul of the Netherlands. These pickups were immediately recognized for their high quality and brought to market under the Benz Micro name as well as the Madrigal Carnegie 1. The Madrigal Carnegie 2 was the first cartridge made by Benz to use a ruby core generator. In the early 90s Benz came out with their own ruby generator cartridge aptly named the Ruby.

From bjerager on Audiogon:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/benz-micro-empire-mc-5

1) Quotes from HIFI+ Issue 37

RG: When did you produce a cartridge to your own design, as opposed to copying someone else's?

VDH: That was in 1982, a cartridge called the DDT.

RG: The model screwed together metal body that looks like, the Benz Micro?

VDH: That's right it was originally by Benz Micro and he was going to pay me a royalty for each cartridge produced. However, he was injured in a car accident and forced as a result to sell his company. Mr Lucashek as a result did not feel himself bound by the agreement so I never received my royalties, but I continued to order the various parts and bodies from him. However we no longer shared technical information and I started to have internal elements made elsewhere, so from this point onwards, although the cartridges look externally similar their internal design started to diverge as we each followed our own development path.

2) Stereophile 1990 March

Close inspection of the Benz MC-3, the top model in the line, reveal a body shell identical (except in color) to that of the VDH MC-1 and MC-10. Swiss designer Ernst Benz has apparently been heavily involved in the design and build of the VDH pick-ups (The design appears to have been a collaboration effort of A.J. Van Den Hul and Ernst Benz) since the original MC-1000 (marketed in this country by Empire - at the same time owned by Benz - in the early 1980's)

The MC-One was clearly the MC-3 sonic stablemate, but the latter was just slightly better integrated and more transparent. Both are clearly class A pickups.

3) Ernst Benz was an engineer working and developing delicate instrumentation (such as accelerometers) for CalTech in the '60's, and later managed an industrial jewel company in Switzerland manufacturing timepiece and industrial jewels as well as sapphire phonograph needles. He formed his own company in the early '70's, with the desire to produce a superior diamond phonograph stylus. To further facilitate this, he developed a high temperature vacuum furnace for bonding diamond to sapphire (for which he was awarded a patent). Throughout the '70's, Benz Micro became one of the largest suppliers of diamond styli in the world, providing support for such companies as Ortofon, Philips, Pickering, ADC, Audio Technica, and Empire (which was later acquired by Benz).

In the '80's, Benz utilized his knowledge and specialized manufacturing skills in developing a series of extremely high quality moving coil cartridges. The introduction of the Benz Micro MC-3 in 1985 was pivotal for the company, as this cartridge was immediately recognized as one of the finest cartridges of its time.