The devil is in details. When someone using a donor (secondhand cartridge for parts) to fix another broken cartridge my question is why not just buy different fully working original cartridge (better one) instead of making Frankenstein ?
Showing 5 responses by chakster
I decided to send my Denon 103R to him for modification. He removed the body, mounted it on a stainless steel plate and added an aluminum cantilever and line contact stylus. It sounds nearly as good as the REF (at 4-5 times the price). I had an accident, bent the cantilever; he fixed it and had it back to me in a week! He has my Benz now, and I am looking forward to what he can do with it. Highly recommended! I bet every retipper can upgrade a cartridge designed in the '60 like DL103 (aluminum cantilever, conical tip), but i doubt every re-tipper can upgrade Benz or some other advanced cartridges of today. You said your Benz has not returned yet, but you already recommend this vendor, strange. |
Steve at VAS has done an awesome job for me repairing a half dozen high-end carts and counting. everything from a re-tip to cantilever/styli replacement, re-tensioning suspensions and fixing dead shorts. Wow, that’s amazing, you don’t want to deal with original cartridge manufacturers/designers for a proper rebuild, you have someome else, right? I assume you like new cartridges but you don’t want to buy a new cartridges from the dealers even if nearly all manufacturers simply change worn cartridge for a brand new one via their dealer (instead of re-tip/rebuild) for a special price. Because you have someone else who can fix broken cartridges cheaper with different materials it’s OK for you. One question: why all your cartridges required re-tip, cantilever/stylus replacement, re-tensionin? Are we talking about quality high-end cartridges here or something else? Do you use them so hard? @saburo this thread has been very helpful. how close to "new" or "original" can a rebuild get? have some of you found your carts to sound better than original versions? thank you. @c_cocobean Do you know any cartridge designer who will post on audiogon? Below is audiogon post from Jonathan Carr who is internationally renowned cartridge designer (maybe you know Lyra cartridges?). In my opinion his thoughts about cartridge re-tipping process is much more valuable than all the post in this thread. Do yourself a favor (read his post on audiogon from 2013 below): *** "Changing only the stylus will alter the sound less than if the cantilever material is changed. When a cartridge is designed, the designer will consider the moving mass (sum of the stylus, cantilever and coils), the resonant character of the cantilever, and the (sonic) propagation velocity of the cantilever (affected by the cantilever’s mass and rigidity), then choose the suspension and dampers accordingly. If you change the cantilever material, you are effectively throwing the original designer’s calculations away. There is much more (far more than what I have written above) to rebuilding a cartridge than affixing a new stylus or altering the cantilever. In over 30 years of involvement in the phono cartridge industry, I have not seen one retipper who has presented the entire story, who has effectively said "Here are the all of the considerations. Here are the cons as well as the pros. Make a wise choice that is best for you" ... " (J.Carr, 2013) *** |
@pindac why don’t you just name a cartridge you’re talking about? If you upgrading cheap Denon 103 with Conical stylus to Advanced profile on the same cheap aluminum cantilever it will be a huge upgrade in sound quality. But it will never happen if your original cartridge already have advanced cantilever and stylus. |
This is Namiki Boron Rob cantilever/stylus structure @scm If you want to know the truth I'll tell you that genuine ZYX cantilever structure is not what anyone can get from Namiki or Ogura, at that time (Airy is an old model) it was made for ZYX exclusively, see on my image why it's different. I owned Zyx Airy III. Now you can look at Namiki Boron in the real world, an actual image provided by Namiki. What you will see is a Boron Rod with an angle cut end and glue. When you buy something used you must ask for an image of the cantilever and stylus, otherwise people can cheat you selling refurbished cartridges without even mentioning this fact. You could buy a macro lens for your smartphone to check it yourself. Zyx cantilevever is completely different in comparison to others. Nakatsuka-San used press-fit method (not glue like all re-tippers or modern Namiki). As you can see on my image (it's genuine boron cantilever on my Airy III) the diamond goes all the way through the hollow pipe. Actually in a present time this image uploaded on Namiki site, but when you scroll down you can't find this cantilever in their list of available cantilevers. There are only two type of cantilevers with press-fit stylus mounting method (aluminum and zirconia). |