Yes, I founded “IT Industry” in April of 1974, named after my father, “Takeo Ishiyama”. First job was to polish headshells by surface grinding, by myself, with no employees. Now we have 21 employees, including my daughter and son-in-law.

Mr.Katsuaki Ishiyama/ President of IT Industry

Numerous analog products like tonearms, cartridges, various cables and accessories. In addition, we assemble phono stages and preamplifiers.

CNC Milling base, machining Center Control panel

CNC Milling base, machining Center, under operation

Mr.Ishiyama adjusts SA-1.2B arm-lifting device

Assembling work of medical equipment and wiring harnesses (Until Year 2005) and electrode for the automotive industry.

I could say, several tonearm brands.

Mr.Ryutaro Ishiyama (Son in Law) adjusts SA-1.2B

Mr.Ryutaro Ishiyama (Son in Law) adjusts SA-1.2B VTF scale

All parts are designed and manufactured in house by our own machine tools, including our own CNC milling machine center, and manual tool room lathe. Some parts with large diameters (30 – 60mm), and extremely complicated parts, only producible by compound CNC machining with “live tooling”, are produced by sub-contractors.

The assembly and tuning of our tonearms are made by our craftsmen for ideal mechanical contact, without rattling or play, by hand polishing.

Upper floor of IT Industry analog production room

Current conduction test in tonearm cable (Checking wiring against wire brakage or mis-connection after soldering)

FANUC 5 axis CNC mill/machining center, manual tool room lathe, manual milling machine, surface grinder, shot blast machine, buff grinder, plastic injection molding machine.

Bench-type lathe for various small mechnical parts (Lathe tooling from 1 to 15mm DIA,for material of brass,stainless, aluminum, Delrin plastic)

Soldering lead wire in receptacle,facing toHeadshell

Sorane (Abis) are IT Industry original products, and all parts are machine tooled, not die-cast.

None, we are what we are.

To extract details, at the maximum level, of each cartridge, while maintaining their good tracking ability.

Drilling machine area

Adjusting arm lifting device

We constantly maintain and refine a philosophy originated by legendary Osamu Ikeda-san, at Ikeda cartridges, to get detailed and rich reproduction from bass to treble, by identifying new materials and improved surface finishes.

3 models, and we improved the Ikeda “IT-345/407”tonearms.

Molding cable end terminal(Molding external terminals with RCA pin terminals).

Molding cable end terminal(Molding external terminals with RCA pin terminals)

There is no general answer, but my preference is for the J-shape or straight wands. However, besides shape and bearings, tonearms require appropriate inertia and mass.

In general, gimbal tonearms are more complex structures, dictating the shape of the bearing housing.
Bearing selection for gimbal bearings are somewhat dictated by the axis of motion. Horizontal and vertical bearings have completely different demands. For dynamic balanced types, the bearings themselves dictate the design, both vertical and horizontal movements being defined by bearing motion.

Aluminum, Iron, stainless steel, brass, titanium, engineering plastic, wood etc..
Another way for favorable results is to perfectly mate the various parts, by carefully hand grinding and polishing the mating surfaces , using industrial diamond, carbide, etc..

Fixing cable end terminal

Assembling headshell

Composite of 2 kinds, hybrid type, like 4N copper plus 6N copper.

Yes, gardening, breeding Stag beetles, breeding RANCHUU gold fish, breeding cactus, fishing, mountain camping.

Yes, my daughter and son in law.

Ms.Akiko Ishiyama (Daughter) adjusts stylus alignment of Ikeda MC cartridge

Mr.Ryutaro Ishiyama (Son in Law) assembles SA-1.2

Japanese Soul Song, Pops song, Jazz.

Yes, around 300 pcs, after getting Ikeda business.

Yes, Mr.Osamu Ikeda, designer of Ikeda cartridges and tonearms.

Minitor speakers