Yamamoto Headshells
From Yamamoto Sound Craft
Wooden Types: HS-1a/HS-2/HS-3
Headshells have mostly been made of metal. Wood, in terms of strength and dimensional stability, is more difficult to obtain accuracy and strength. Because Yamamoto Sound Craft Company has specialized in precision machining of wood and plastic, they have the proper techniques for holding and machining wood for headshells, making full use of wood’s unique properties for analog reproduction.
There are many advantages of wood. One is that resonance peaks of the cartridge will be suppressed because of the internal losses of wood. Second, the headshell material has a considerable influence on the total resonance of the tonearm. By using a wooden headshell, it is believed possible to suppress the influence of the resonance the cartridge on the tonearm. A third benefit is the ability to fine-tune the mass of the cartridge+headshell+tonearm mass, to better match the compliance of the phono cartridge. When total mass is too high, a lighter headshell can be used. When mass is not enough, a heavier headshell can be used. Above all, choosing different headshell materials allows the fine tuning of tracking and resonance.
The HS-1A headshell
HS-1A is the latest version of the HS-1 African Blackwood headshell. This version has longer slots for the headshell, since there are more cartridges on the market with nonstandard mounting distances (measured from the stylus tip to the centerline of the mounting holes).
African Blackwood, also known as grenadilla or mpingo, is a beautiful sounding wood, and is used to produce the oboe and clarinet. Specific gravity is about 1.4, and its strength is among the highest of any wood. Because of the good strength and dimensional stability, the reasons for its adoption in woodwind production, Blackwood is an ideal headshell material. There is no problem in strength, and Blackwood can directly accept most headshell hardware without fear of damaging the wood, although nylon washers are recommended to prevent scratching.
The HS-1A comes with gold-plated brass hardware. You can increase the total mass by using the longer screws, to fine tune resonance frequency of the headshell and cartridge. These fasteners are non-magnetic.
HS-1A standards
Material: African Blackwood (finished by buffing)
Finger hook: brass (non-magnetic gold-plated finish)
Own weight: 10.6g (not including hardware)
Accessories: standard type shell lead included
Price: $75, plus flat rate shipping to anywhere in the United States via USPS, usually $7. Ships from Texas.
The HS2 Headshell
Asada cherry wood is a fairly stiff species, native to Hokkaido, with a specific gravity 0.75. Asada cherry was chosen for the best sound for Yamamoto speaker enclosures, and is used by others like flooring and headphones, with a good reputation for durability, stability and excellent tone. The HS-2 uses carefully selected heartwood, from the best quality Asada cherry tree. Because of the density, and the use of heartwood, it was decided to use a gold-plated brass plate with integrated finger combination, to provide a firm stop for the screws. Since the specific gravity of cherry is lighter than metal or ebony, the brass plate increases the weight to be similar to all-metal headshells.
The HS-1A comes with gold-plated brass hardware. You can increase the total mass by using the longer screws, to fine tune resonance frequency of the headshell and cartridge. These fasteners are non-magnetic.
HS-2 standards
Material: hand selected Hokkaido Asada cherry heartwood (eco paint buffing)
Finger hook and screw plate: 1.5mm thickness brass (non-magnetic, gold-plated finish)
Mass: 10.4g (not including mounting screws)
Accessories: brass gold-plated mounting screws; standard type headshell leads
Price: $73, plus flat rate shipping to anywhere in the United States via USPS, usually $7. Ships from Texas.
The HS3 Headshell
I am offering the HS-3 boxwood, or Tsuge, headshell at a reduced cost to buyers of the Abis SA1.2 and Jasmine porcelain cartridges. The low mass of the HS-3, at 8.2 grams, makes it particularly useful for the SA1.2 and the heavy Jasmine cartridges.
The HS-3 is the new headshell using boxwood. Boxwood is a very good quality of wood that had been used for such items as old combs and seals. The specific gravity is about 0.75, a little heavier than Cherry. The grain is very fine, homogeneous, and nearly invisible. In this respect, its homogeneity and fineness, is better than African Blackwood. In fact it is also used for shamisen (a musical instrument). Recently it has become somewhat rare, more or less like African Ebony, so its use is becoming less common.
Boxwood is lighter than Blackwood, but is its strength-to-weight ratio is very good. So it was decided to use the same design as the HS-1A in order to produce a low mass headshell. As a result, the finished weight became considerably lighter, at 8.2g. This allows for reducing the effective mass of a tonearm, or to use a much better sounding material (boxwood) over the commercially available cheap grades of plastic used in mass market headshells. After finishing with clear eco-paint, we display the product name by laser engraving. The finger hook is gold-plated brass.
Boxwood is particularly excellent for producing low-resonance, high-strength products. The characteristic of the grain, which is very fine, prevents high resonance modes of the faster growing hardwood species. So, even though it is wood, it doesn't have much resonance.
HS-3 standards
Material: Boxwood a.k.a. Tsuge
Finger hook: gold-plated brass
Own weight: 8.2g (not including, mounting screws, including the lead)
Accessories: headshell leads included; brass gold-plated mounting screws included
Price: $75, plus flat rate shipping to anywhere in the United States via USPS, usually $7. Ships from Texas.
Yamamoto non-wooden headshells
The HS-4 headshell
The HS-4 is a high-strength, lightweight headshell using carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is a state-of-the-art material that is attracting attention as a leading composite material adopted for aircraft and racing cars. It is manufactured by molding carbon fiber with epoxy resin etc. It's characteristic is about twice the rigidity of steel, about 1 / 5th the weight of steel, and sound propagation speed is also excellent. For HS - 4 the carbon fiber was molded to a thickness of 5mm, and the headshell was finished while maintaining high strength. Carbon fiber is hard and difficult to process. HS-4 processing has been successfully lowered by making full use of our CNC processing machine and processing them all in-house.
The finished weight including the lead wire is about 11 g which is considerably light, and meets the ideal condition of light weight and high rigidity.
HS-4 Standards
Included lead wire HS - 4: Standard type 4 - color lead wire included,
Connector pin is phosphor bronze, gold plated
Material: Body: Carbon Fiber 5 mm Thick
fingered lift: Brass (non-magnetic gold plated finish)
External dimensions: 18 (W) 50 (L) 18 (H)
Mounting part - Except for the fingered part, including the connector part Length: 62 mm
Weight: 10.7 g (including lead wires - not including mounting screws)
Accessories: 3 types of gold plated mounting screws made of brass are included
The HS-5 headshell
The HS-5 is a high-strength, relatively lightweight titanium headshell. The material is high-purity titanium of gray appearance, light and very strong, it can be said to be the most promising metal for headshells. Titanium has a specific gravity of 4.5 and is about half of brass, and the strength approaches steel, so it is used for various high performance applications. Titanium is also famous as a difficult material to machine, and it seems that our company is the first to adopt it for headshells.
The finished weight including the lead wire is 18.4 g. It is slightly heavy, but unlike carbon fiber etc., but is less resonant, with lower losses. The music is neither dissipated, nor does it cause harmonic resonance.