Cartridges and old man

..that's why what this country needs is more skilled craftsmen/women, not college grads who can't find jobs.

VERY True, Stringreen.
We need jobs , a person who REALLY wants to be educated
needs only a library card .

Actually Stringreen hit on a very interesting topic with regard to high end audio. If you go to Wikipedia and search Stradivarious they talk about double blind testing and how inconclusive it has been for listeners to identify the Strad from the pretenders in various live auditon situations. The similarities and arguments pro and con for double blind listening tests are tremendously similar to our hobby.

I'm not sure that Stradivarious, BTW it was a family of string instrument makers and not just one, codified the instrument. Strings are tuned with pegs and there is no set tailpiece to tuning peg dimension as far as I can tell. Tuning the string to a particular pitch is made by adjusting the tuning peg. The accomplishments of the Strad family are very much ensconced in materials used, implementation, instrument size, and then of course the player using the instrument. Sounds a lot like high end audio and attempting to listen to and identifying a particular effect and from where it eminates in the audio chain.

More directly to the cartridge makers and their demise, the record was declared defunct about 23 years ago. What more can I say except it wasn't true and we are getting some of the best pressings ever 23 years later.

Nakatsuka-san of ZYX is another elderly man who hand makes his cartridges. Recognizing that he won't be able to work forever, he's been training several younger family members. They've been actively involved in making cartridges for a couple of years under Nakatsuka-san's supervision. This legacy is being preserved.

OTOH, consider Herb Papier, who developed and built the TriPlanar (nee, Wheaton) tonearm as a one man craftsman. As Herb neared retirement he searched for someone to assume and protect his legacy. He found a superb candidate in Tri Mai, who has continued to improve an already great tonearm while respecting its legacy.

A legacy can, but need not necessarily, be assured by an in-family succession.

IMHO, IF there's a big enough demand for the product, in this case cartridges, then there is always someone who can step up and produce said product. The key factor being that there is enough demand.