GRACE: Their tone arms – what happened?

Gentlemen, What happened to the makers of the Grace tonearms. I recall the made more than the G-707 inc one with a bamboo arm-stem. Help.

Well, this is what we found so far: "Small Japanese company made a big splash when it came out with the first oil damped tonearms in the 50's, this page here has some minimal info on them. While the Japanese "single ended" crowd mostly hunts out for their 50's damped models and the 60's G340 and G440 models, the 60's and 70's era G-704, 840-F and the wood bodied 714 are more sought after in the west. The G-707 was introduced in the late 60's and continued in production well into the 80's, the original design replaced by the MkII in the mid 70's. This is by far the most commonly seen arm from the company and it was considered to be something of a bargain at the time, works well with high compliance carts."

2 thoughts on “GRACE: Their tone arms – what happened?

  1. In addition to what has been said I would like to add the following:
    Grace did have an important production: In addition to tonarm they also produced carts and a beautiful (from the sound viewpoint) step-up transformer that performs very well with their carts.
    This is their production:
    Cartridges: F2,F3,F8,F9,F9 Ruby (with a ruby cantilever),F45
    Tonearms: G120,140S,180S,180B,240,545,545F,565F,640P,660P,704,707,
    Sigma 709F,714,727,747,840F,860F,940,945,960(as far as I know the last one marketed)
    Step-up: GS.10 (Input 1&2, Imped. 3, 25, 40 ohms, Output 4K, 25, 49, 100,Freq. 10-100,000hz.)
    This step-up is very difficult to find on ebay and when is available fetches very high prices (up to 800$)
    Some of their arms were produced also for quadriphonic sound.
    Ikeda -San, before the Ikeda-Sound Lab. and before Fidelity Reasearch, it has been said he did work for Grace although it is difficult to acertain on which project.
    Since 2011 Ikeda gave the distribution of the Ikeda Sound Lab. to IT Industry Co., but in actul fact I think he sold the Company. Another sign, like Grace, of an end of an era.

    1. Hello fastbob. Thank you for this. The additional information is invaluable; it’s just the sort of recollection I was hoping for. End of an era indeed. I never came across the step-up BUT sold many, many F9 and F9E cartridges mainly to disgruntled owners (not my customers, fortunately) who discovered that Kans, Saras and to a lesser extent Isobariks were unlistenable on naturally recoded female classic voice and who concurrently discovered that the preceding retailers (flat-earth, usually) were both useless and unsympathetic in response. Consequently the ‘humble’ Grace F9 / F9E was a lifesaver. Moreover it sounded damn good too. I have a soft spot for all Grace products I’ve encountered and I thank you most sincerely for being the catalyst for happy memories. Kind regards ¬– Howard

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