A pragmatic view of cartridge expenses / many questions


Trying to see what your thoughts are on cartridge expenses? Do you buy cartridges and replace or retip after it’s worn? Cartridges are like tires for cars in some ways. You have to replace the tires after they wear out.

If you own an ultra expensive cartridge, let’s say, over 7k, is that your main spinner? Do you do a factory retip at costs exceeding thousands? Do some of you who own high cost cartridges use them only for special occasions, similar to drinking Dom Perigon for some special event, and use a normal not so exotic cartridge for regular day to day use and perhaps non-audiophile records.
I am sure each of us have our own price threshold and thoughts of high end cartridges. I only said 7k, because that seems to me a fair price point to describe a very expensive cartridge.

My thoughts are that having a few normally priced cartridges around is a good thing, due to the wear and tear, and replacing or retippimg would also be less costly. I do lust after some high end cartridges and if I do obtain one, my philosophy would be as described above. Enjoy for special occasions, and use a less costly for normal day to day listens. Geez, it feels like we are trying to separate our car cruises from a sports car feel to a luxury limo ride feel, in some ways. 
What’s your opinion on expendability of cartridges?
audioquest4life

Showing 3 responses by lewm

Thanks, Raul.  As you may recall, I once owned a Colibri, and it occurred to me that it and most other VDH LOMC cartridges I know about do or did not have particularly low internal resistance, which is what one would want if loading at 20 ohms.  But listening tests are the most important criteria.
Dear AQ4L, It is good to have you back on this forum. Like Raul, I was a bit surprised to read somewhere here that you are happily loading your newly acquired for demo VDH at 20 ohms. You’ve said elsewhere that your phono stage (the Aesthetix Io?) produces 80db of gain and that you also have a Pass XP27 or access to one. Since your phono stages produce so much gain, I gather you are not using a SUT to step up signal voltage from the VDH. This makes me wonder why you’ve chosen to load the VDH at 20 ohms. Every VDH is slightly different from every other VDH, so I don’t know what is the internal impedance of your particular model, but that seems like an excessive load (20 ohms) for any LOMC that has any higher than a 2-ohm internal resistance. How did you arrive at 20 ohms?  Have you tried increasing the load R (in other words, reducing the load)?


Mijo, Why would Mussolini, alive or dead, have any reaction to tires on a Ferrari? Ferrari was founded in 1948, and Mussolini was strung upside down and murdered by his own people in 1943. Benito never knew there would be a Ferrari marque, although he may have known Enzo, who was a successful driver in the 30s, before he became Commendatore of his eponymous car company.