JICO's history started back in 1873...
when the ancestor of Nakagawa family started a sewing needle factory for Kimono.

In 1949, JICO began manufacturing steel record needles and modern diamond tipped stylus in 1966. The factory headquarters is located in Hamasaka, situated on the Sea of Japan in the northern part of Hyogo prefecture, approximately 500km from Tokyo.

Hamasaka experiences heavy snowfall throughout the winter season as many people find difficulties travel outside the town and also being cut off by the many mountain terrains. Therefore it was necessary for us to design, fabricate, repair the facilities and equipments by adjusting our hand-made custom jigs back in early to mid 1900s.

Even today, with advances in modern transportation infrastructure, people from Hamasaka require at least three to four hours to reach a major city (Kobe).  In other words, enduring the hardship and inconvenience of geographic isolation has given us the technological strength to be self-reliant. As the maxim goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

JICO manufacture approximately 2,200 different models of record styli with each stylus carefully hand-assembled by experienced staff and artisan who has been serving for JICO over decades.  Today the JICO name is well known by audiophiles around the world as the maker of the Super Analog Stylus, a rare needle known for both superb quality and excellent fidelity.

Company name

NIPPON PRECISION JEWEL INDUSTRY CO., LTD.

Address

Head Office & Factory:
Ashiya 100,Shin Onsen-cho,Mikata-gun,Hyogo 669-6701

E-mail

For questions or comments, please fill in the necessary details on the inquiry form.

- FOUNDATION - "A Journey into the JICO factory"

JICO has remained consistent in its quality over the past several decades producing high-quality record styli since 1949.
In the same spirit as when we began as a sewing needle factory in 1873,
JICO CUSTOM SHOP carries on the tradition and journey to provide the best
Made-in-Japan quality craftsmanship for every product we design and manufacture to be delivered to the world.

Play Video

QUICK TOUR ON
JICO WORKSHOP

JICO has a long history until we reached to the level today as we’ve had been taking pride in producing high quality phonograph replacement stylus for over several decades

Work process #1

Building styli is not  just simply about assembling the parts such as  tip, cantilever, rubber damper, and knob, but there are many other small complicated parts that require specialized skills to assemble.

Work process #2

We are exceptionally excited to have the opportunities to prove our skills when we receive orders from customers that are particularly difficult to produce; due to complexity of internal stylus structure despite of a deceptively simple external appearance.

 

Secret Artisan Jig #1

One of the small lathe machines to help calculate and adjust the stylus & cantilever to the correct angle positions.
This machine was created by one of our retired artisans back in early 80’s

Secret Artisan Jig #2

This machine will help support maintaining the cantilever in the correct position for our craftsman to puncture a hole for the needle (stylus) tip.
Same as Jig #1, this machine was designed and created by our retired artisan back in early 80’s.

SOUND/PERFORMANCE QUALITY TEST

Each stylus will go through three different rigorous quality inspections and sound quality checks by our specialists before getting packed for shipments.

Our main focus is to define the “JICO sound” and to develop products that will create this sound. At the same time, we will continue to develop products which audiophiles want. We will release products which make an analogue record more enjoyable for listeners such as nice to have products, fun to have products, or products that listers think they are available in the market but they are not.

Yukihiro Nakagawa

JICO - President