Vinyl Asylum

RE: Grammar police...

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: Grammar police... posted by John Elison on April 02, 2016 at 08:22:45

I have never gotten a comprehensive answer from a retipper on these questions. Getting an email back from Soundsmith has always been a hit and miss proposition, they are quite busy and try to keep their costs down so their services are affordable. The basic submission process is to get registered on line, get a RA# and send the cartridge in.
Actually the typical answer from any retipper is "we have to evaluate the cartridge to determine whether it can be serviced or not." Which I certainly understand, it makes sense. But there must be a typical set of procedures that occur in the repair process, and I have never seen a detailed discussion of what might occur to a persons cartridge once it goes in.
Most owners are just happy to get their cartridge back in working order, at a price that is fairly reasonable. I get that. But what about if you go out to buy a vintage MC, lets say a Koetsu or a Kiseki that has been retipped. You know it may be different than a pure stock one, but those cartridges can never be replicated again. But exactly what are you buying now? What has been done to the cartridge? How will it deviate from when it left the factory? Are these changes in fact significant? To answer these kinds of questions, it is necessary to know what happens during the retip/refurbishment process. And if you have a specialty type cartridge, say a Lyra or a ZYX, or Transfiguration, you usually want to know what the variations of repair are before work starts on a $2K or more cartridge I would think.
In the past I have had cartridges done by Soundsmtih and Andy in Seattle. Um lets see, I did own an Accuphase AC2 that Expert Stylus had redone, but I bought it that way with 0 hours. So no direct involvement with Expert. I just sent an email off to the New Garrott Brothers/Audio Dimensions to see if they will answer the questions. If I get anything back I certainly will share it.
Regards
Mister Pig

Edits: 04/03/16 04/03/16

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