by Joe Wallace

How much would you pay for a replacement record needle? How about a replacement record cartridge made from coralstone? No, you probably won’t be doing any scratchin’ with the Koetsu Coralstone Platinum cartridge, which retails for a brain-shreddingly high price tag of…wait for it…$15,000. That’s right, fifteen THOUSAND DOLLARS. Did I mention this is mono only?

Imagine if you will, having a checkbook fat enough to plunk down 15K for one of these, taking it home and dropping the needle down on..anything. You’d never get any records played because you could never get past the “Which album is worthy of the first needle drop from my new fifteen thousand dollar replacement cartridge?” question.

Well, maybe Kind of Blue by Miles or maybe a Morricone classic. But really—how could you even get started?

Now imagine for a moment that the Koetsu Coralstone Platinum actually ISN’T the most expensive replacement record cartridge on the planet?

Submitted for your approval is an even MORE EXPENSIVE Koetsu replacement cartridge for all your high-falutin’ designer vinyl needs. This one is so exclusive that only TWO of them are made PER YEAR according to the retail hype. Crack open a $500 a-bottle Laphroaig 25 year old Cask Strength Islay Single Malt Whisky and listen to your Sesame Street Live! soundtrack album on THIS little bastard:

The Koetsu Blue Lace Platinum Magnet cartridge is a low-output cartridge retailing for $20 thousand, and is made with “an agate Onyx of blue, grey and white layers of fused quartz.” Me personally, I’m hoping to score one of these to play some old Eminem 12-inch singles on and maybe the soundtrack to Ordinary People. Then I’m going to tear it up at the club with some scratching action–using a Rick Springfield record that the lightshow guy snorted some coke off of five minutes ago.