Received The MC2000 Back From Expert Stylus Today

@lewm To be honest I did not ask for detailed descriptions of why the cantilever was damaged or what its likely occurance was. As I mentioned when I first received the cartridge I set it up and cued it down and got rewarded with the sound of no diamond on the end of a cantilever. Now did the diamond choose that moment to separate or was it sent to me by the seller in that condition? That I cannot answer with certainty.

What I do know is the end of the cantilever did show damage. Was it a failed mounting point, did the metal fatigue, did it get cued hard down in its life and compromised? No way to know with any certainty. Mr Hodgson was able to make a repair to the end of the cantilever to his satisfaction and install a new paractrace. You look at it with modest magnification and you cannot see any repairs. It passes his quality control checks, and that works for me. I listen to the cartridge and there are no issues to be heard.

I went back into my emails, and this is cut from the communication and addresses the issue. The how of this happening is something I cannot pin down. I mounted the cartridge and had the issue right from the first cue down. For what its worth I cannot see any visual indicator of where he made the repair.

The Ortofon MC2000

This particular cartridge received rave reviews and having carried out a detailed examination found it to be in relatively good order apart from the fracture at the end of the tubular alloy cantilever.The fractured piece containing the diamond results in a shorter cantilever and this may be possible to repair by machining an abutment bonded with our ultra low mass Paratrace profile diamond. It is essential the overall mass of the cantilever remains unaltered as any increase will affect the overall compliance.

I believe I recognise in this description Mr. Hogdson from ''Expert

stylus''.  What i miss by MC 2000 descriptions is its output of 0,05mV.

That is to say the ''amount of wire'' used for the coils. This means

reduction of mass but also ''reduction'' of suitable phono-pres

to ''drive'' the cart. My Klyne phono-pre can't  drive my MC 2000.

So I own one but can't use the precious. 

@nandric

Oh Mr. Hodgson had something to say about that, I just did not figure it was relevant to a post about the repair. He did try to caution me about prceeding with a service. At the time I had not acquired the T2000 transformer. I am very glad I pressed on anyways, as it was my good fortune to get the step up about a month later. This is what I was told:

"I am sure you are aware, this cartridge has an extremely low output and requires a step up device in most cases. Also the compliance is extremely high and will require a low mass arm.

I think you should give serious consideration to spending money on the cartridge, unless you have the experience and equipment necessary to be able to play the cartridge."

I have the Dynavector DV505 arm for it, and have a Fidelity Research headshell that is 5.5 grams, so I can meet the low mass requirement from the vertical plane. Actually I am able to follow the example of our esteemed @lewm in this case. The T2000 feeds a Graham Slee Accession, although I also have an input on the Esoteric E-03 phono stage I can feed it to. I have a second DV505 on the Scheu turntable that goes to one input on the E-03 and a SOTA Cosmos Eclipse/SME V that goes to the second input on the E-03. So I am content to keep the MC2000 on the Graham Slee, it sounds very nice there. What I feel very fortunate about is that I have no significant system noise. If you go back and read writings from JGH on the MC2000 and MC3000 it sounds as if back in the day folks had issues with hum and system noise using this cartridge. I have somewhat higher efficiency speakers and large solid state amps, so noise can be an issue here. Thank goodness I have none using this cartridge and I can just enjoy its beauty. I listed to a few albums last night and am quite content with how things turned out.

Hi neonknight, If you look at new (expensive) Ortofons  you will see also

pretty low output ( 0,2mV) but the lessons from MC 2000 are still in

high regards: only one layer of wire for's 's  the coils and (probably) stronger

magnets to increase the output.  BTW deed Lew try to seduce you with

''hude offer''  to sell to him  your  T2000, He is desperate to find one.

He may try to convince you that phono-pres are better solution referring

to Raul's  conviction as ''argument''. 

@nandric I am not a vintageophile, but I certainly have a respect for the classic components. The MC2000 is one of them. When I was in college I worked part time in an audio store and the owner was a huge MC2000 fan. I could never afford one, but did dream of it. So when I got a chance to get one, it allowed me to revisit my past in a meaningful way. I will not be parting with this cartridge/step up.

I know very well how hard it is to obtain a T2000. I will not be letting mine go. What is amazing is I got the entire MC2000 box, packaging, screw driver, graphs, weight scale, stylus brush, and even lapel pin. with the T2000 i got the box, packing, paperwork, with the only thing missing was the included RCA cables. I don’t think I ever saw a more complete MC2000/T2000 package up for sale. I feel quite fortunate to have lucked into this.