I put this in the wrong thread earlier.
I should correct something. When i commented earlier i meant new cantilevered not retip. SoundSmith calls themselves retippers but mostly as far as i know they prefer to recantilever. All three that i had done were recantilevered. I don't actually hear much about just retipping. Correct me if this is wrong.
@chakster
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I have sent my cartridge to Andy at needle clinic for a new cantilever and stylus.
Will advise once I get it back. |
No one can explain better than J.Carr (Lyra) who is a cartridge designer himself. An this is what he said: To retip a cartridge that was originally equipped with a stylus made by one manufacturer with one made by a different manufacturer is like rebuilding a Porsche engine with Jaguar pistons and crankshaft - the components used for rebuilding may be of high quality, but the design philosophy is rather different from the original.
Still, as one poster wrote above, 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. -J.Carr I think it’s very important. Re-tipper will never tell you this, because they want you to pay for their service and your cartridge will work after their service, but how and for how long no one will tell you. Even a person who owned original and shipped it for retip will get it in a few month and can’t even compare it to the original anymore. What you will get is no longer original cartridge and no longer original sound concept of the cartridge invented by its designer. Of course it depends how good was the original cartridge to your ears, but you get the idea. |
Andy did a great job on my Clearaudio Panzerholz. Replacement, even with the Clearaudio trade in, was way more expensive than a new cantilever and tip.
Yes, he was very optimistic that his job would/could sound better than the original. I had 4 choices and ended up going up a step to end up with a better than original.
Does it sound better? YES
Is it different? YES
It is a very different cantilever to look at but the sound is very close and quite amazing. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. |
