@andychris
You're right, personally i don't mind if it looks like a DIY inside IF IT WORKS FINE. In fact most of the cartridges are handmade by its designer. But if i will notice any problem with a NEW cartridge i want to be able to return for full refund. I will give a chance to replace defective sample with a perfect one, but if i will notice any problem again then i will never deal with this brand. Price tag is another story, but i don't mind to buy used samples from honest sellers, because they are proved to work fine (it's a perfect test) !
|
@parrotbee actually the exchange rate of UK POUND is very low nowadays, so what was expensive before is cheaper now when you convert GBP to USD. There is another cheaper company in UK (Expert Stylus) |
my conclusions come from my experience, my cartridges didn't sing after partial retip, but poeple need to get top hifi to hear the difference. I had to retip a benz LPS a few month ago, ALL retipping services answer me the same thing " we don't have microridge diamond + boron cantilever but ours diamond cut is much better, you will not hear the difference" that makes me laught. And some of them didn't even told me that they will mount a different cut, it's not serious at all. One time I had a used ZYX univers with a VDH diamond or zyx with shibata, but who cares, it's a diamond after all !!
@andychris Great post! I feel the same about re-tipping and refurbishing, even after cartridge designers like J.Carr explained why it's a bad idea, some people still think that re-tippers in their garage are smarter than cartridge designers. We're in minority on this forum, the majority of people are happy about re-tipping with completely different diamonds/cantilevers. They are happy to pay extra money to convert clever design to some frankenstein, because re-tipper said it will be even better. One of the reason, in my opinion, is that only a few people can actually compare original sample to refurbished sample, in this case they must have both cartridges on hands, but after 5 month they can't even remember the sound of their ex original cartridge. And re-tipper will say that it must be better after burn-in (100 hrs). To my surprise many people are happy to deal with less known and less qualified re-tippers they are often advertise on this forum after the job is done. I think some audiophiles does not have enough cartridges, they want to stick to one or two and happy to re-tip them many times (instead of finding something new/better). |
@uberwaltz Yes, coils repair can be very difficult, i remember peter Ledermann mentioned this problem in his interview. It's about coil re-winding in the worst scenario.But in your situation it could be just soldering together a broken wire? |
One of the reason @edgewear is that some important parts produced 30 years ago are not the same (or don't even exists today). And since you're not a re-tipper yourself you never know. I never owned Kiseki, so i can't comment on this particular brand. But retipped cartridges are often on ebay almost unused as the OP pointed before while the originals are not always there. And don't forget about some exclusively made parts for big cartridge manufacturers. |
