Tell me about it. I'm in New Hampshire and I am about to go out and blow the driveway.
A Story about a Defective Signature Platinum
Last week I was listening to music at a healthy volume while sitting at my computer. I have an auto lifter (Little Fwend) and after the arm lifted I noticed a static noise with occasional popping coming out of the left channel about 40 dB down. At first I thought it was a bad tube but it disappeared when I turned the volume down. It is in front of the Preamp. None of the other sources had the noise. Swapping tonearm cables did not seem to change the sound but then I noticed that the sound was also in the right channel just farther down. Disconnecting the tonearm stopped the noise. I change over to an MC Diamond, no noise. Same with the Atlas, no noise. Swapped back to the MSL, noise is back.
The cartridge is exactly one year old but it rotates with two other cartridges and might have 75 hours on it. I called the dealer who told me to contact MoFi distribution, the US agent for MSL. Turns out the cartridge only has a 90 day warranty and I was told I would have to send it in for a rebuild for $6000! Can't they just fix the problem for maybe $500, No. Can't I just send it in for evaluation? The stylus and cantilever are brand new. No, a rebuild is the only option and you have to do that through the dealer, click! Most very expensive cartridges have a 2 year warranty on them not to mention that most companies would cover such a defect even off warranty as in the absence of physical damage it is obviously a manufacturing defect, a bad solder joint or maybe just two wires rubbing together. This is very disappointing and as far as customer service goes Home Depot is better than MoFi, Sears is better than MoFi! MoFI is right up there with Anthem Blue Cross! The service rep could have offered to look into it. Maybe communicate with MSL and get their opinion. I am sure if MSL knew about it they would gladly fix it and actually be embarrassed. The Japanese are like that. There is no way I can find to get directly in touch with MSL.
$6000 is not an option. I am not going to throw good money after bad. I am also not going to off a defective cartridge on someone else. I am going to take the cartridge apart and reflow the solder joints and make sure the wires are separated. If that doesn't fix it, it goes in the trash.
Mistakes and defects happen, it is what you do about them that counts. MoFi failed dismally in this regard. MSL makes a fine cartridge but I would only get another one if they changed agents and increased their warranty. Obviously, I will avoid buying any other MoFi products myself and warn others about their customer service. I have no further use for the dealer who did nothing to help. I have had superb service from Musical Surroundings, Soundsmith, B+H Photo and the Cable Company. All handled issues with ease. Has anyone else had trouble with MoFi? What companies have provided you with excellent service when the sh-t hit the fan?
Showing 50 responses by mijostyn
Tis an art no doubt, but an expansive one. The Atma-Spheres cost me a hot tube and associated landscaping for a total of $75 K not including the Atma-Spheres. She's at it again with new windows, carpeting and an entirely new master bathroom. I should be able to get another amp and cartridge out of it. |
Yes it is. I listed it as mint for two reasons. It meets US Audiomart's definition of "mint", I listed it for $1000 less than another MSL on the site, I am trying to attract customers and I plan on having personal full disclosure before the sale. I would never sell the cartridge without giving it's full history. It is operating perfectly normally and those photographs of the stylus were taken just before the listing and as you can see it is perfect. Why am I selling it? I like the Lyra Atlas SL and the Ortofon MC Diamond better. I have an opportunity to get a Hyperion MR at a great price and I have to cover the expense or my wife will kill me. |
I do not know for sure, but I was told that when the Anna name changed to Diamond the new version incorporated all of the improvements made in the Verismo. The only thing I know for sure is the Verismo is going to require a very heavy arm to produce good bass. It has the same compliance as the MC Diamond, 11 um/mN but weights 9.5 gm vs the Diamonds 16 gm. I just get the Diamond down to 8 hz with the heaviest brass mounting plate supplied with the Schroder CB arm. I do not see what the coil wire type is with the Verismo, but the Diamond uses oxygen free copper. I would assume that if they found a wire type that made the Verismo better they would use it in their flagship also. Stanger things have happened. |
The Hyperion will probably be my next cartridge. I had a Voice and it was wonderful. The MSL has been in duty for the last two months and is working fine. MoFi made sure I was paid back the cost of the repair, so all is fine in Hobbit Land. I have an MC Diamond and the Verismo is essentially the same cartridge. As long as you have a quiet phono stage with 68 dB of gain or more, IMHO, knowing the system you have, I can not imagine that you would not like the Verismo best of those choices. It is more detailed and dynamic than the others. If a system is inherently sibilant it will make that worse, but if your system is smooth through 4 kHz I cannot imagine you liking another cartridge better. Systems like these never advertise the volume they are playing at. You don't realize how loud they are going until you try to talk. You also never get the feeling that you have to turn them down, only up:-) |
I love the Drifters along with Dion and the Belmonts, The imperials, The Capris, Shep and the Limelight's, The Tokens, The Earls, The Five Discs, Harvey and the Moonglows, Randy and the Rainbows, The Flamingos, The Mystics, Boss-Tones, The Platters , Lee Andrew and the Hearts, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, etc. I did not come into them until later in life. @lewm A\ And what the heck did you listen to when you were 10 years old, Lawrence Welk? Tell me you liked the bubbles! |
Mums the word. Look under the pile of sawdust. How old is the 787 now? Making a cylinder out of balsa is simple. Orient it any way you like. You resin impregnate it, stick the blank on the lathe, drill an axial hole with a drill mounted in the tail stock and finally turn it round. On a good day I bet I could get the wall thickness down to 1/2 mm. As a form for a carbon fiber tube it is much too time consuming. It is much easier to use a Styrofoam cylinder. But CF has become commonplace and rather boring. A fancy arm needs something with more pizzaz like Rhenium Diboride. The Drifters? You are giving away your age. I stop at Paul Revere and the Raiders classical not included. |
Nice cover. Such non disclosure agreements pertain to patentable issues during the life of the patent. Anyone dealing with items significant for military reasons will have security clearance. I suppose tomic has one of those also. I happen to be an expert woodturner. We resin impregnate wood all the time with colored resins to make interesting turnings. We put the wood (I like driftwood) in a large pressure pot with heated resin, apply pressure and let it sit for 48 hours. When you release it from the pot you have a resin cylinder that you can mount on the lath and turn to any shape you desire. The driftwood usually decides. We do not have security clearance and are not aerospace engineers. I do have one non disclosure agreement which I can not discuss. |
Your having the same problem I have with the MC Diamond. Unfortunately, it will not be quieter because you just push the volume up to get to the equivalent loudness. You are not changing the signal to noise ratio. It will seem quieter only because there will be less noise at the same position of the volume control. If you ever get a Lyra do not opt for the SL version. The higher output versions will work perfect with your phono stage as will the MSLs. I plan on getting another Voice. I gave my old one to a friend for his 70th Bday. Great Cartridge. I might try the MP500 and a Goldring. I do not have a Goldring now. Switching back and forth between phono stages will be a PITA. I might get a second turntable. One that can except a 12" arm. I can get a good deal on a CS Port but it is not my kind of table. I will have to get an isolation platform for it but the pair would be less expensive than a Dohmann Helix 1. I'm not sure if the Helix 2 accepts a 12" arm. There is also the SME 20/12 and 30/12. Basis, like Sota, totally avoids 12" arms. |
The topic of this post is doing well and as far as I can tell there has been no change in its performance since the repair. It (signature platinum) is a very easy cartridge to live with. It's high output and low impedance give and excellent signal to noise ration. It is smooth and silky maybe lacking the last word in detail. The MC Diamond is a tank of a cartridge. It is big and heavy. With the phono stage I have it does not have the greatest signal to noise ratio as it is very low output and has a higher impedance of 6 ohms. When played loud I can hear the hiss between cuts. It is extremely detailed and dynamic. The Lyra Atlas Lambda SL is not quite as noisy as the MC Diamond, is just as detailed but perhaps not quite as dynamic. It has the best resolution of the third dimension. I spread out the wear between the cartridges but if I had to choose one it would be the Lyra. The Seta L Plus does not have a MM section, but the DEQX which I should have shortly has some kind of special MM section designed with or by Dynavector. I will get back into high output cartridges and maybe try a transformer for fun. |
The Balsa wood would have to be impregnated to make it stiff enough. The arm wand is actually only 6" long. It is not prone to a high effective mass at all. Given it's short length it will take more mass to get the EM up where most MC cartridges like. The patented idea has to do with the linear, computer controlled motor. The arm itself is not anything out of the ordinary. It is a short gimbal arm without any offset and no anti skating. |
The only relationships to the Rabco are it is an electrically driven tangential tracker. The current design is the first iteration and in some areas the materials are not established, like what we are going to use for the tonearm wand. Functionally we want it to run by remote control. It will go to the beginning of the record and cue it. At the end of the record it will pick itself up and return to the resting position. The drive is unaffected by level. We will use scaled down versions of the same electronics used to control the robots. Two problems remain. It is going to be a heavy arm, the question is how heavy. It might be heavy beyond all practicality which I doubt. It will certainly be too heavy for many turntables. The last question is how much. We have to get a rough idea of materials cost. Some of the arm is very new technology and the method of making some parts has yet to be decided. The arm might have to be priced beyond practicality. How many people are going to by a $400,000 tonearm? I would like to keep it under $50,000, the lower the better. Initially we plan to build 10 units. If they are well received we will look into building larger batches. The tonearm wand is pivoted in both horizontal and vertical planes. The vertical plane uses a needle bearing very similar to the 4 Points. The horizontal bearing is a very fine ball bearing race without a lubricant. It is limited to two degrees in either direction. The drive will be trained to lead the arm. It will remain perfectly tangential plus/minus a few seconds. There is no need to have more horizontal freedom. It will be neutral balance and the vertical bearing will hopefully be at or near record level. We have not decided on how to trim azimuth yet. We are hoping to be able to control VTA by remote control. We may have to knock off a lot of things to keep the price down. Patents are not much assurance that you won't be copied but it will be very hard to reverse engineer the arm. There are certain proprietary issues very difficult to figure out. This is very new tech. My son in law was showing me a CAD picture of his companies new device and my brain immediately flipped to TONEARM! All of my great ideas did not get very far. One is actually marketed today. My partner, the one with the money got tired of paying patent attorneys. 10 year later up pops my design. This one is not going to be a huge money maker but it might lead to other audio related devices and electronics and give my son in law an opportunity to start his own company. |
I can not discuss fine details until our patents are established. My son in law is a robotics engineer. His company makes the robots used in chip manufacture. His robots have to move in nanometer increments. We have designed what will be the the finest tonearm you can buy. It is a tangential tracker and the only mechanical connection between the arm and the greater world is the signal wire. |
For the substances in equal caliber that might be true but given the Sapphires much larger diameter and tapered form I highly doubt it for the tonearms. Don't worry I'm not about to buy a Sapphire arm. I have my own thing going and you are never going to believe it! Schroder solves that problem supplying cartridge mounting plates of three different masses. Generally tonearms like the Reeds that supply a range of wands have an additional connection at the wand's base, so in reality they are no different than SME style removable head shells. |
I though the fibers were resin impregnated. The Schroder system does not have a head shell. It uses a mounting plate for the cartridge which makes it very easy to align. There are no additional connections. You have to pull the clips every time you change cartridges. There are not any connections at the bottom of the arm either. The outer sheath and shield are stripped back to expose the tonearm wires, a stunt you could do with the Universal if you so desired. Technically, the only near perfect tonearm wand does not exist, it can only be imagined. I suppose Kuzma's Sapphire is as close as you can get in terms of stiffness and resonance. |
Function and aesthetics always run together. The trick is making a functional object aesthetically pleasing. What will happen with an arm like that is everyone will think it looks like (insert any appropriate four letter word here) and have absolutely no interest in it regardless of how well it performs. Experimenting like this is a fun thing to do. If it is only for yourself and you do not care what it looks like then that is totally your prerogative. However, if I were an audiophile friend of yours, visited and saw that I would privately think you were nuts. What you see effects what you hear. |
@terry9 , Being a pioneer is fine and dandy, but there is an aesthetic element that you have to pay attention to. |
I would think the Air Tight is very representative. Same designer and builder. MSL probably makes more cartridges for other companies than they make for themselves. I would think that it is valuable and will soldier on with Matsudaira san's absence. Yes, the Atlas SL is a more detailed cartridge with a better sense of the third dimension assuming you have a phono stage that can handle it's very low output. Most people should stick with the regular Atlas which I have not heard. The Signature Platinum will match up with just about any phono stage. |
Those magnifications are way beyond any lens like that. The other problem is you would never be able to hold the phone steady enough to get a picture or even get a small item in field. If you go to my virtual system page pull up the picture of my wall cabinet. To the left is a desk. On it you can see the horizontal microscope and the lighting source in their parked positions. |
Here it the link to your pictures https://imgur.com/gallery/YbkY8Rp That was D/C resistance not impedance. He only reconnected the wires. He did not touch the coils or anything else. |
Sorry Raul. I tossed the cartridge when the left channel went dead. It was a sapphire cantilever and I believe it was a rod not a tube but I can not be sure. Peter Ledermann uses a ruby cantilever, a pretty red one. He makes a special version of the Sussurro called the Sussurro Gold. Some say it is his best cartridge. You should try it! I use a custom mounted Amscope laboratory USB microscope with a special PC program. A similar set up would cost you around $2500. The closest thing you could get to it ready made would be the WallyScope. |
https://i.imgur.com/LFFl4hO.jpg Hopefully this works. This is an AP view of a MSL Signature Platinum Stylus. You can tell it is a MSL cartridge because of the way the stylus is mounted, in a slot. |
Good to hear. However, they make a good profit on these rebuilds. The rubber hits the road when there is no profit involved and they go out of their way to help a customer. One of the reasons rebuilds for Soundsmith cartridges are so inexpensive is they handle it directly without involving a middle man. Mr Lederman should serve as a model for the industry. I know it is nice to have local venders and they have to make a profit to survive, but... |
I personally think that law suite was silly. I have the One Step 45 rpm Countdown to Ecstasy and I have to tell you, It is as good as vinyl can get. Am I going to jump on all the others available? No, The problem from my perspective is that all of these re-releases are available as Hi Res downloads for $18.00 which sound just as good or better in most cases. This is my third version of Countdown. I got it out of curiosity. If you want to demonstrate vinyls potential, you can't do much better. |