Diamond Stylus Enters the 4th Dimension


So, I went to play a Chet Baker Album last night. Lowered the arm, flipped og the mute switch and.......GARBAGE!

The cantilever looked fine. On examination with my USB microscope I confirmed a sullen fact. The diamond had gone AWOL. There is just a little glue left on the end of the cantilever which is completely undamaged. It is a Clearaudio Charisma cartridge.

Anyone ever have this happen? I played records the day before no problem. I did not take anything to the stylus brush or otherwise. I do use an Audio Technica tonearm lift but it's trigger mechanism is so light. I can't believe that did it and it certainly should not do it. IMHO the cantilever should break before the diamond gets knocked off. 

The cartridge is four months old and I got it from Elusive Disc. It has a two year warranty. Here is where the rubber hits the road. 
128x128mijostyn
@daveyf , I'm using the Onzow for more than 10 years on my cartridges (Ortofon Kontrapunkt Blue first and Cadenza Bronze recently) with no issues. I guess that most of the problems arise from user mistake. I've also used for many years the Last Formula 4 without any damage to the cartridge (Shinon Saphic, Kiseki Purpleheart, Carnegie One, etc..).
I've seen diamonds gone from the stylus on several cartridges, last week a customer brought in a Grado Reference Platinum, s**t can happen!
@katylied I know a number of dealers who are now refusing to stock or sell the Onzow cleaner. I’m pretty sure  the horror stories with the Onzow result from what you say...user error. I use one on my Lyra, along with the Last Stylast, and both do work quite well. I think one has to be careful though with the Onzow.
That could definitely rip your stylus off. (the Onzow)
Daveyf, the ultimate was 3+3's. I could not afford them back when they were available and they did not make very many of them, but you could stack 3's. When you make the speaker 8 feet tall it metamorphs from a lamb into a tiger. The basic characteristics remain just a lot punchier, louder with a larger sound stage. The problem with 2+2's is that they are very selfish. They do not have quite enough horizontal dispersion. If I had the 3+3's I probably would not be lusting after Sound Labs 845's....as much.
Hopefully will hear from Elusive Disc today.
@mijostyn  I think you are referring to the Acoustat 6's when you say 3+3...is that right? I had a friend who used to own the Acoustat 8's. They were huge! Required an extremely large room, which he had, and were not that easy to drive. I thought they were a good speaker, but I also thought that stacked Quad's were far superior, and for a lot less $$. 
I always lusted after Quads when I owned my Acoustat's...
Not so much today..:0)
Good news. Sam Arnold from Elusive Disc called to tell me that Ken from Musical Surroundings wanted me to email him the USB Micro pictures of the cantilever and he would send a new cartridge right out! Sh-t Happens.
It is what you do about it that counts.

daveyf, it was 3+3 and 4+4. All of them were 8 feet tall. The Acoustats were worlds tougher than Quads. It is almost impossible to blow an Acoustat. I have personally been party to the destruction of three Quads. This is no comment on current units just the old ones. As for sound quality it depended on how you drove them. Given a powerful class A amp the Acoustat 3's could sound just as good as quads. Once you get to the 8 foot guys it should be no comparison as the sound stage is larger and more detailed than stacked quads which do not form line sources. Again you need a high test amp. We have not even talked about subwoofers yet. My ancient 2+2's with subwoofers will do 110 db all day long. I certainly do not need larger speakers for volume reasons. I rarely go above 95 dB. I would really like better horizontal dispersion which Sound Labs speakers offer. Finding 3+3s is virtually impossible. If I could find good clean panels I could make them but more than likely I will switch over to Sound Labs.