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?
I have had discussions over the years with a selection of Third Party Services, where my inquiries are initially about the Parts that can be made available to be used on a Cart' to undergo a full refurbishment.
Additionally, I have made inquiries to discover what is on offer as part of the service to be provided.
I have distinct recollections of the costs for the service, to include a thorough cleaning, an inspection at a set fee, parts and a optimisation of the internal parts.
I can't but help sense VAS NY Inc supplied all of this minus any replacement parts. The cost certainly suggest there has been more occur that just a mere reconnection of a wire to a lead out pin. I suggest prior to the working on the wire, there was approx' $80ish dollars tied up in cleaning and inspection, I would be shocked if the Soldering alone cost close to $220.
The VAS NY Inc description does not seem to differ in any way too much from what I am already familiar with.
" Additionally, we can perform custom modifications including switching styli, upgrading to mono use, cartridge cleaning, and coil demagnetizing. Cartridge inspection is FREE. All we ask is $45 to cover for any shipping charges if you do not want a repair. We will carefully inspect each cartridge that comes in and recommend the best option to you. Once the inspection is complete, we will call or email you about the details of repair and cost. The usual timeframe is between 4 to 8 weeks but it may be longer or shorter depending on the amount damage to the cartridge and queue of other cartridges waiting. "
I wish to report that Jon Derda, VP of sales and marketing, MoFi Distribution has made a very convincing attempt at rectifying this situation. If the cartridge is not repaired he promises he will have it taken care of. In addition new rules have been set for the customer service department and he is having the warranty periods of cartridges reviewed with an eye towards increasing them to the industry norm.
Time will tell, but I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Afterall, sometimes you don't know you have a problem til it "swims up and bites you in the ass."
@mijostyn Interesting that the VP of sales and marketing is now opting for a more ’customer friendly’ position than when you were apparently talking to his reps.
I wonder if the bad publicity that you were attempting to expose had an effect?
Presumably if your cartridge is still faulty, that the offer to repair it will be on their dime...and not yours?
Am I the only one wearing the spectacles that sees this thread as becoming a rip innocent parties to pieces threads, first Mofi and then VAS NY Inc.
It is a shame to see such a anti third party service type, publicly and regularly spread their doubt on the qualities of the end result of the work completed.
With the knowledge at hand that the Cart' in question has been tampered with by a individual and their tweezers, it looks like to me Jon Derda, might be really bending their warranty policy, I am sure this is not how they intend to have supplied Cart's treated and then expected to be kept under warranty.
It is a shame to see such a anti third party service type, publicly and regularly spread their doubt on the qualities of the end result of the work completed.
Say what. Is this self parody or dissociative amnesia.
Most of what you posted was drivel. "$80 for 'this or that'", "Frankenstein", "buffoon"
I wish to report that Jon Derda ... has made a very convincing attempt at rectifying this situation ... Time will tell, but I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes, time will tell. I’m happy to extend the "benefit of doubt" to Derda and MoFi, but where the facts are plain and there is no doubt, they enjoy no such benefit.
MoFi gets little credit from me for making an exception to an absurd warranty policy as mijostyn’s thread approached 8,000 views. My personal boycott of MoFi and Music Direct will remain in place.
Good job mijo to leverage bad publicity into remedy. The problem is that you had to do it.
@cleedsI have now witnessed the work undertaken by VAS NY Inc being questioned in a very unkind manner, especially following what looks like a super support from VAS was put in place for this matter.
@mijostyn is stating "If the cartridge is not repaired" , as well as other suggestions there is concern for the repair on the Cart' being returned.
Making references such as this and the other references made which are quite similar, are unpleasant and whiffy, I don't feel like walking by on such a matter, pointing out that there is such a attitude, feels better to me.
As for Mofi being innocent, I am not going down the rabbit hole, as for the supplied facts, is not the following a reasonable understanding.
The Cart' in question was Nine Months out of the warranty period when contacting Mofi, and even after learning the Cart' has been seriously assaulted ( in Cart' talk) by Tweezers, Mofi (knowing of such a assault on their supplied Cart'), have offered to step up, when the Cart' is now with a selection of treatments. One of these Treatments, is way beyond what they would expect a cart to be exposed to under a warranty. Mofi are the ones bending all their Warranty Terms and offering to take on risk here, hats off to them.
Mofi are allegedly reviewing their Warranty Periods (I strongly suggest they remain rigid to their Warranty Terms).
Mofi are looking into improvements with their Customer Interface, hat off to them. If Transparency was made known for what the Warranty Period is to mean to a Customer, there will be a much more attractive sales service manifest.
@doverThank You for your assessment on the content of my posts.
It is a habit of mine to inquire about the cost of a service being selected to be provided. For myself, I like to know where my hard earned is going. Some call it due diligence to inquire about costs to be incurred, some might also call it a much mor e simplistic term, such as getting a quote.
It is no harm sharing some of the info that has been collected as a guestimate, I even backed it up with later found info, direct from VAS NY Inc. I felt I was in the ball park and did not see any need to tweak my made known guestimate.
" In my view the Distributor should have offered to have the fault evaluated by the factory. If it was a manufacturing fault - then they should come to the party. If they felt it was a user issue then they could stand by their warranty.
If I was the manufacturer and a cartridge was defective I would want to know what the issue was. "
I thought that was looking clear, if the whole of the Thread is read carefully, is it not? a 69 (not 70) Year Old Buffoon had their moment probing around the Cart' in questions very very fragile internals with a Set of Tweezers and Magnifying Glass.
@doverI do agree that Buffoon can be seen as unkind, but in the context of this thread it is merely associated with one who supplies humour/comedy, and this is a Thread full of it, especially from the OP, those tweezers and expecting special treatment are killing me 🤣. I wish Judge Judy could join in, she'd tell it as it is. In this case the Plaintiff would be laughed out of the Court House.
@doverI do agree the work Frankenstein Cart' or a derivative is not really attractive, I do believe my only usage of the term over my period of time as a forum member has been to help describe to others how some refer to Third Party Refurbed Cart's. My preference is nearly always 'rebuilt' and modified.
I certainly am not using the 'Franken' term, in the manner witnessed by others use of it over the years.
The Franken' Term has quite a history, it is seen to be used for more that 10 Years on this Forum, I see you have enjoyed using it in the past, especially as a unique derivative of the term, on the date of the 03-06-2016 at 10:45pm which is shown in the following timeline going back 7 years.
I use Koetsus in my main system. In my vintage system, I use a Franken Denon 103 that has a micro ridge stylus, has been repotted into a wood body and tweaked by Steve Leung at VAS.
If yes just try Baerwald or Löfgren alignment changing the P2S distance from Stevenson. Then listen and listen in between ( B, L and S alignments. ) and return here to share your experiences there.
If not, your post is useless and futile this time.
Through all your posts in this thread and IMHO your contributions helps to no one because you have not today facts on hand.
My Dynavector Karat Nova 13D is real and freshly rebuilt by Dynavector with an updated micro ridge stylus ( previously had a fineline ); it is not a frankenstein fake like the one you advertised on Audiogon.
And to all involved. Jon Derda is insisting on sending me a check for $330.00 The Cartridge arrived back home today and sounds great, no noise noted. Jon Made sure I knew if the cartridge was not repaired he would take care of it. I will be watching the MSL website for the new warranty period and will report back.
If none of you responded to my post I have to assume I would have been ignored. The brisk response helped kick the brick upstairs to people who could remedy the issue not just for me, but hopefully for others that have MoFi soursed equipment and music that might develop a problem in the future.
@mijostyn Good to hear that at least someone at MD is trying and willing to do the right thing. Pity that it took what was almost a public flogging to get that to happen.
Nonetheless, I think MD were perhaps in a world of hurt after their MoFi One Step debacle and hopefully Davis and his ilk will soon be gone...
Given the disappointment of possibly having to write off an $11k a cartridge that you wanted to enjoy for some years, I think your comments have been very even handed and if Mofi follow through you have done a favour for the rest of us that follow. Congrats.
For the rest of us that follow, maybe @mijostyn could produce a listing of Do's / Do nots for the investigation worthwhile considering in preparation to buying a Cart'.
The Bullet Point List, could outline learning about Cost from supplier, Cost from alternative sourcing, Warranty Terms considered fair on a Cart' of a Particular Value and what will be the best practices to be carried out by the Cart' purchaser/owner to keep it in a condition that is supported by the Terms of the Warranty.
For those who stumble on this thread in the future and may have not read the, whole of its content, this summary if offered up by the OP, who has now certainly showed themselves as an authority on such a matter, will be hopefully passing on Pearls of Wisdom to the interested parties.
Who knows the Bullet Point -summarised content, might even make ones grey day verry very blue. There is nothing like a good one liner, to get the audiences roaring with laughter.
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.
I forgot to mention. Steve bends over backwards to make sure his client is happy. He showed me pictures of the completed repair and an ohm meter plugged into the individual inputs showing 1.80 ohms in each channel. I had the cartridge back in less than 2 weeks. Thank you for the recommendation!
@mijostyn Here I have to disagree with you, I think the law suit was entirely appropriate and warranted. Why, because these bad actors ( Davis and MoFi) had essentially created a bait and switch scheme. All the while stating their AAA source as a benefit to the a’phile consumer ( to justify their price), while knowingly reproducing a digital product. To that, their ’limited edition’ due to AAA master tape source fragility, was complete hogwash, given the digital source of the release.
I recently acquired the MoFi One Step Mingus Ah Um, and while it is a good sounding release, it is absolutely nowhere near what I believe it could have been IF it was a pure AAA release. Knowing what we now know of these LP’s, it is pretty obvious of the source IF you compare to a release from Opus 3 or their ilk in SQ. The Mingus AhUm sounds good, but it does not compete with many AAA masterings /LP’s that i have from a pure SQ factor...not even close.
The original "Mingus-Ah-Um" is already sooo good, it would be hard to beat or to mess up in reissue. LIkewise, "Tijuana Moods". I would not have been in favor of that lawsuit, if anyone was taking a poll, because in the end we need to keep companies like MoFi alive for our own benefit. They got the message without a lawsuit, and I don't hate the digital step in the modern era where hi-rez is so good.
Steve bends over backwards to make sure his client is happy. He showed me pictures of the completed repair and an ohm meter plugged into the individual inputs showing 1.80 ohms in each channel. I had the cartridge back in less than 2 weeks. Thank you for the recommendation!
You are welcome, @mijostyn! Steve and Ray at VAS are a real asset to the high-end community. He has worked on a number if items for me and always does a terrific job. Truly first class service. MoFi, take note.
If you spent 10k + on a cartridge you may have enough cash to hire a lawyer to help.
I don't know of any lawyer qualified to repair a phono cartridge and even if you could find one, it's unlikely he'd equal the skill of Steve Leung at VAS. Steve's fee of $330 for the repair is probably lower than the consultation fee charged by many attorneys.
Please don't waste your time responding to comments like that. chrisoshea would prefer we lived in a communist country where everyone is entitled to a $100 cartridge.
I don’t follow your line of reasoning in regards to chrisoshea’s post. The way I read it, he meant you could hire a lawyer to deal with MoFi. That’s not communist ideology. However, I agree that $330 wouldn’t even elicit a call back from a successful and competent lawyer.
Hi Lawyer, I've got this Phono Cartridge, that has a Warranty Period expired Nine Months ago. It seems to have a fault, maybe it even always had this fault whilst in use.
Additional to this, I went to work with a set of tweezers and got quite invasive in my venture of having a probe around inside the Cartridge.
I'm hoping that a legal support might get myself a special treatment.
Happy to hear that VAS was able to fix your MSL cart. I think it is great that Music Direct also is covering the repair, even if it took a thread like this to bring it to their attention.
FWIW. I purchased a Koetsu RSP through Music Direct years ago. Recently, Music Direct handled a rebuild for this cartridge, which is now in Japan getting new guts. The process was handled very nicely by Music Direct.
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...
Skyanalog Audio are certainly making Cart's that will be a decent contender to any of the Cart's being referred to, their asking prices are more than competitive.
The Brand is also from a Country that has been instrumental in making Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates a cool combined personal wealth of approx' $700 Billion.
It looks like Countries with a certain Politics are loved by some from Countries with an alternative take on the Politics.
@mijostyn More of your one liners, what a farceur you are 🤣you're such fun to learn about.
Maybe the Tweezers that you are happy to declare how quick you are to draw, were sourced through a well known Internet Portal that sells all sorts of Items.
I used it to purchase a Pedicure Set for my darling wife, I have remained controlled and not been tempted to have a probe around in any of the Cart's I own, with any of the interesting looking implements, even the Cart's I know have a blatantly obvious damage.
Dear @mijostyn : I would like that you link the picture of your MSL stylus tip you showed to me.
The subject is that due that you are " anal " that the cartridges must comes with the stylus tip perfect centered or you return to the seller that cartridge I would like to share with all these Agoners that Steve or Expert stylus are not the only good re-tippers.
Yes, exist many and between those " many " is Joseph Long :
860-338-0153 Cartridge_Retipping@outlook.com and things are that I shared with you photos that he sended to me of 3 of the 10 cartridges I gave him to been fix it. In these 3 cartridges I ask preserve the cantilever/cartridge original integrity and only change the stylus tip with a line contact stylus shape and he did it choosing one of the Ogura different dimensions tips according the one that mated with the cartridge cantilever.
It's interesting for any audiophile to see the very high precision need it to achieve what you look for about. Some models from different cartridge manufactures comes with out that kind of need it precision but we owners not even take in count because normally we don't care so much with new cartridges and only we take a look when we have a " trouble " with the cartrridge.
From de time you started to point out about I took care with my cartridges and with the ones when my audio friends bring with to listen in my system.
Joseph always is busy due that he works in " solitaire " and he really is very good and with a full experiences with almost any vintage today cartridges and is one of the few re-tippers that recoil the MC if need it Normally he works mainly using Ogura and Gyger parts with several combinations on stylus shapes and cantilever build materials.
I hope @needlestein ( his moniker ) can read this post and can post the link I showed you.
Btw, this is what you told me about your top of the line MSL and one of my cartridges:
" The stylus on the MSL looks exactly like the one on that blue cartridge. Here is a picture I just took. I have a really nice set up for taking these pictures as you can see. "
Sure you have " nice set up " that is similar to the quality in thde Joseph Long pictures.
Anyway, he can be a very good alternative over other retippers because additional to his high skills his overall prices are lower than any of the other two I mentioned here and lower $$$ always is a bonus/plus for all of us.
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.
You see the grooves cut on each side? That is how you create a "microridge" stylus. The styluses on the more expensive cartridges are selected. They have a better polish and cut.
I had a Talisman S and liked it a lot. After a while one channel stopped working entirely, so I tossed it. I was not aware there were so many people out there that could have fixed it. The stylus was actually still in pretty good shape. The S stood for Sapphire cantilever.
I have some NOS Talisman S and recently when I took them out to have a look at the styli I was shocked by how clean stylus/cantilever interface was compared to current even top of the line cartridges.
I could not see any glue at all - the micro ridge diamond embedded in the sapphire tube looked like a piece of glass embedded in other piece of glass.
Soundwise, a little coloured compared to todays top cartridges, like say Van den Hul Grand Cru/Kuzma CAR50 etc but resolution probably better than many of todays cartridges up to $2k despite that It was not a top of the line cartridge in its day.
Unfortunately I don't have the gear to take a decent photo.
I think the way the body of the cartridge was mounted to its headshell interface betrayed it. If I had the cartridge today I would try to do something to stiffen that junction. I bet that coloring you are hearing would disappear. If you would like to try it with the one you have, let me know.
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