Cost to Rewire a Tonearm?

thanks for the advice everyone.

Knowing I was taking a big risk buying from Russia, I bought a 3 year warranty from Square Trade when I bought the tonearm ($110), they confirmed they will reimburse me.
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I met both Steve and Ray Leung of VAS on Monday, what wonderful people with a love of audio and equipment. You are surrounded by a warehouse of vintage equipment, LP's, R2R tapes, and it is heart warming to see a father and son working together with such enthusiasm.

They knew my Fisher 80-AZ's by sight when I showed them the photo, Steve said: if you ever want to sell them .... He has a few matched sets of EL37's but I didn't want to be tempted, so I didn't ask the price.

They finished the bias of the Cayin yesterday, 2 days, what took so long?I'm lucky to live only 35 minutes from their shop. I'm gonna pick it up and drop off the tonearm.

They already know about the silk covered Litz wire it has. I'll let them decide what wire they want to use, I am sure it will be high quality, and selected for the specifics of the arm and to avoid a repeat of the problem. Once I pick a pro I have confidence in, I make my desires/preferences known, then let them do their job in a way they can guarantee. They have rewired a lot of arms, we might do 1 in our lifetime (I hope no more).

I saw a beautiful 12" SME arm they restored. I have an old 3009 series II in a box, I probably will have them overhaul it someday.
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my problem: insulation worn off where UNPROTECTED wires exit the base (above the deck) causing slight hum. It's the weak link, a bad design choice.

http://newartvinyl.ru/board/detali_proigryvatelja/tonarm_black_bird12_5_carbon/7-1-0-41

The new Blackbird design with integral DIN connector, and PROTECTED wires would have avoided this.

http://newartvinyl.ru/board/detali_proigryvatelja/tonarm_black_bird12_5_5pin/7-1-0-53

If local, I would have recourse with NewArtVinyl, have the base changed from my RCA Junction Box to integral DIN. I may submit my bill to them when done, ask for some compensation, see what happens.

Oh Happy Day.

chakster, everyone

the tonearm is the one on the right side of photo #8 in my system shown here

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/9511

It’s the one chakster advised me not to buy.

I dropped it off with Steve and Ray at VAS earlier today. Picked up the Cayin they biased for me. Except for the unprotected wire, they were impressed by it, especially liked the micrometer for VTA.

They showed me a nice VPI junction box to use that will fit inside the dust cover and have a mini connector input/rca out: easily remove the arm. I asked them to paint over the text, change the ugly screws to black allen head. yes, yes, of course.

https://www.vpiindustries.com/store/p254/Junction_Box.html

chakster,

you are reading between the lines, I mean ONLY between the lines, you are missing the book's author's name like I do. this has always been about that damn PITA but otherwise wonderful arm.

Alrighty,

VAS re-wired the tonearm, done in one week. Steve and Ray are wonderful to know and work with.

https://vasnyinc.com/

VAS also provided and installed a new VPI 4 pin mini-connector and RCA Junction Box, and a separate tonearm ground wire.

https://www.vpiindustries.com/store/p254/Junction_Box.html

Total, including the new junction box: $435.

What wire? The one Steve uses for all tonearms he re-wires (I didn’t ask about customer specified wire).
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Square Trade approved the repair cost and is mailing me a check. Thank goodness I bought a 3 year warranty for $110. when I bought the arm from Russia. I knew it was a risk.
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Luckily VAS is only 35 minutes from me, so I left it on the removable tonearm board, drove it to them, they worked without changing my VTA height .... Board right back in, re-align the cartridge, listen!

They stopped by yesterday to have a listen and peek at my 3 systems and totally trashed garage with the inherited LPs.

Hum was caused by insulation being worn off at the silk covered Litz wires at the point of exit from the gimbal and thru a sharp edged hole in the base. A design flaw, solved by VAS, and by newartvinyl on their new 5 pin din model.

http://newartvinyl.ru/board/detali_proigryvatelja/tonarm_black_bird12_5_5pin/7-1-0-53
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