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Andy Kim - Needle Clinic

I wanted to put this post out there about Andy Kim of Needle Clinic, located in Bellevue, Washington. As many may know, Andy is a cartridge re-tipper. I tried to find some older posts to add my comments but couldn't find them. So I'll start another OP. I just got my Lyra Kleos back from Andy today. Here's my comments.

My Kleos sounded a little off lately, so I thought it should be checked out. I sent it to Andy Kim. It turns out all that was needed was the stylus required a cleaning and polishing. Andy reported back that the stylus only has about 10 percent wear; IOW plenty of life left.

So I remounted the Kleos today and have been playing all types of music: rock and roll, classical, and so forth. The Kleos sounds wonderful; just great. Kudos to Andy Kim.

Fyi -- some may ask why I didn't send it to Peter Ledermann at Sound-Smith. I seem to recall reading somewhere that he's been unusually busy lately -- and with good reason -- and turn around might be a bit delayed. Also, I'm not sure Peter uses replacement cantilever/stylus assemblies that match (or at least come close to) the original. Andy does.
Anyway, that is a bridge I don't have to cross today.

Bottom line: Andy turned my cartridge within a week of receipt and I am pleased.
bifwynne
nd4speed
16 posts
 

I just wanted to chime in really quick about a retip of a Shelter 901 I just got back from Andy. I inspected it under a high powered USB microscope and work is really superb, perfect alignment and very clean replacement with a micro ridge nude stylus, sapphire/boron cantilever that appears to be much lower in mass than the original. As expected, detail retrieval has increased while retaining the core signature sound of the cartridge. I'm extremely happy with the work and recommend him highly.

He also turned this around in astonishing time (about a day); he apparently works on every cartridge himself and doesn't farm anything out. His queue at the moment appears to be low so if you have any work that needs done now is a great time to get it done.

tzh21y
1,654 posts
 

He is excellent.

will234us
1 posts
 

Andy is great! 

I bent my apheta 3,  he repaired & shipped  it back the same day he received it. 

Sounds fantastic. 

tswisla
176 posts
 

I had a similar experience.  My cartridge was done and back in the mail the same day.  It sounds wonderful.

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,926 posts
 

Another alternative: Steve Leung of VAS (New York) regularly posts pics of rebuild / re-tip / adjustment work on his Facebook page. A lot of very high-end cartridges. The work looks quite good, and seems like he has very good turnaround. He also play tests to ensure no bad "surprises". If I ever want 3rd party work done he's the first one I'll contact. 

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