Cartridge repair by Moscow based Roman??

Great post by Chakster. I agree totally, for whatever that’s worth.

I have had communication with Roman and I doubt that he would be the best choice for a repair job. Probably very good for a simple retip involving change of cantilver/stylus but not necessarily a repair. 

I have had retips done by both Peter L at Soundsmith and Andy Kim at Needle Clinic, both with excellent results but Andy was also able to repair a cartridge (a dead channel) that Soundsmith made an attempt on and was unable to. 

For repair work I'd be inclined to contact Andy, or possibly Steve Leung at VAS Audio as I've read a number of positive comments on repair work that he has done as well. 

Andy also has very quick turnaround time and by all accounts, Steve Leung does as well. 

Personally, I would only ship to Expert Stylus if I was in the UK or Europe. 

Chakster makes some valid points but his comments on the Denon 103(R) conical are absurd. That cartridge\stylus can easily be run for 800-1000 hours with careful cueing and clean vinyl. The 300 hour statement is ridiculous. The Denon conical is one of the best conicals out there-it is far superior to cheap bonded conicals that you'll find on $50-$100 cartridges. 

It is not capable of the same kind of information retrieval as a high quality line contact or microridge (which will last much longer than the Denon conical) but it's not going to wear out in 300 hours unless grossly abused. 

Just to clarify... my cartridge was audio-technica ART9 and it was damaged when the cantilever got snapped. The body is not damaged. So it is a matter of inserting a new stylus. Let me check out expert stylus and come back. 

Actually with Art-9 you’d better check Audio-Technica, but if you bought your cartridges not from the official distributor then they will not help you.

If your sample was from the AT’s distributor/dealer then you can simply ship it back to AT to get new one with discount price. This is how the AT support their customers. It’s normal for almost any modern brand, instead of re-tip they’re giving them brand new cartridge.

Seems odd to me.

If the body was not damaged and the cartridge has continuity in both channels, unless the cantilever was snapped literally inside the cartridge body (ie. there is no visible cantilever outside the cartridge body) this should be a relatively simple repair for any of the decent retippers in terms of grafting a new cantilever (preferably boron IMO) and stylus onto what is left of the old cantilever. 

If you have no exposed cantilever left, then it's a different situation.

Good luck.