OTOMON Laboratory　(音門ラボ)/Product details page

The most famous tonearm that Ikeda-san made is FR-66S but the best one is FR-66FX.

FR-66FX is long version of FR-66S, the armward 's sharp is not same as FR-66S, it is in "banana" sharp, same as EMT 997 tonearm. Armward was made from special aluminium alloy. All part except ofarmward was made from gun metal, black polish, Mr Ikeda designed this tonearm for light weight cartridge, it can handle stylus pressure up to 3g, dynamic balance But it is best matching with SPU-G which is low compliance cartridge, It is also match with DL-103 series cartridge.

Ikeda told that FR-66S is his best product but many audiophile gave to FR-66FX higher reputation. That is reason why FR-66FX now is very very hard to get, it is even harder than FR-66S even through price of FR-66FX is not as expensive as FR-66S.

As Ikeda foundered Ikeda Sound Lab, he made an new tonearm IT-407 and IT-307 and IT-407 was developed based on this FR-66FX tonearm not FR-66S.

Due to order of customer, I did overhaul on this tonearm. My customer want to use this tonearm same as FR-66FX PRO, no need anti-skating, rewire with a bigger wire of Mogami 5248. After rewiring, it will be come FR-66FX Pro, using for cartridge has stylus pressure higher than 2g. As you use cartridge with pressure higher than 2g, you dont need anti skating. Many audiophile dont like anti-skating because it make sound worst.

I also did maintenance, readjust stylus pressure mechanism, cleaning all part one by one, As you use dynamic balanced toneram, stylus pressure will become not accuracy after times and you need to adjust it.

You can see in the picture that stylus pressure of this tone arm is nearly same with Empire 98 tonearm, I think Ikeda designed this one based on the design of Empire tonearm.

Final test: Tonearm is tracing perfectly on record without anti-skating. Sound is deep with beautiful of bass sound. It seems that removing the anti-skating make sound deeper and musical but the detail is not better than original. The sound is very well balanced and dynamic in overall with new upgrade.