One thing I've seen with SME tables a LOT, is people getting too carried away with the damping fluid in the damping trough. SME's are often characterized as dull and woody, but that just means it isn't set up properly.
Don't know how much goo is in your damping trough, but if you have a relatively stable platform to put your SME table on, chances are high you can get away with NO silicone fluid. I'd suggest starting there. It's cheap and easy to try.
Hope that helps!
The Koetsu is a little on the warm side, but once you get it dialed, should still be fairly dynamic.
Good idea, bears repeating. "Sometimes it's a case of finding the right cables or removing the silicone from the arm damping."
If you remove all the damping you should add some mass to the headshell. The SME is a tad light for that cart. A lead spacer is around 3.3g, should do the trick. You could attach a penny to the headshell.
cart - 9g, 5cu
arm - 10/11g eff mass
neo
