Cartridge repair by Moscow based Roman??
Chak That is NOT what HDM said at all. He meant a culmination of 6000 hours total time from a number of carts, not on ONE stylus! Btw, you mean we are NOT on Discworld? ☹️☹️ |
@uberwalts I ran Denon 103R’s, both stock and modified (mainly with line contact styli) for about 7 years and about 6000 hours. If you can explain then how many times it was re-tipped? If the total is 6000 hrs then it must be re-tipped nearly 6 times, because Line Contact life span is about 1000 hrs max (read SoundSmith article above). Was it re-cantilevered each time, because the one and only advantage of the aluminum cantilever is that a diamond can be pressure fitted through this cantilever with minimum glue. If the tip was glued on existing cantilever then it’s inferior. If the cantilever was replaced with a better one then the cost of such refurbishing job is equal to the better MC cartridge. It’s been said many times on this forum, but people still ignoring it and always claimed the re-tip is fine and always better than the original etc and so on and on ... But i agree with @hdm that it’s very bad idea to ship a cartridge for re-tip to Russia when there are at least SoundSmith in USA and Expert Stylus in UK ... both with very strong reputation and ages of experience. The best way to get the ART-9 back to work is to ship it directly to Audio-Technica in USA or JAPAN and replace it with a brand new sample. Or continue suffering from purchase from grey market dealers with no support from the AT. P.S. What he does with your Koetsu is probably just soldering together a broken wire for $400. Let’s face it: It was not even re-tip on existing cantilever (very difficult job even for SoundSmith) or replacement of the whole cantilever (stadard process for re-tippers). If someone will do that the total cost will be 50% of the AT retail, because this cartridge can be found for $900 NEW or even cheaper. A low hrs (perfectly working) AT ART-9 can be purchased much cheaper than NEW. In my opinion re-tip or re-cantilevering make no sense at all for this model, it will cost too much and the sound will be different. This is a relatively cheap LOMC and if it was a grey market sample then it’s better to find a MINT- condition used sample with discount if having ART-9 is so important. |
@chakster uberwaltz was indeed correct; in no way was I suggesting that anyone use line contact stylus for 6000 hours. I thought my post was pretty clear but perhaps not. In taking a look at my history with Denon 103R's it was probably about 5000 hours over all in a 5-6 year period. I ran the stock conical initially for about 800-900 hours and then ran 3 Soundsmith retips on two different rebodied 103R's, two of which were Peter's standard line contact on ruby cantilever and one which was Peter's OCL (similar to Ortofon Replicant) on ruby cantilever. I ran all 3 of those for about 1200-1400 hours each and they all sounded very good still when I retired them. My records were, prior to this, and still are, in very good condition. Very clean vinyl (seems to me from a recent discussion you are not a big fan of cleaning records, but maybe I am mistaken) and careful cueing are critical to stylus longevity. I know you are a huge fan and quite fond of quoting Jonathan Carr (at least when it supports your argument) so you might find this an interesting read: http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=vinyl&n=265884&highlight=ogura+namiki+jcarr&r= |
