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Benz Micro Ace Sh hours

Hey all,

Sometime in 2014 I bought from a reputable audiophile and A'goner a beautiful VPI HW-19 Mk 4 with a Sumiko FT-3 tone arm and a Benz Micro Ace SH (2.5mV) MC cartridge. Back then, the cartridge had several hundred hours' worth of playing. Since then I'v eput at least another 300-400 hours on it. So figure a total of 700 hours, minimum. It's a beautiful sounding cartridge, full of sweet mids and a powerful presence.

Lately I've noticed more high-end distortion on select tracks, especially vocals and piano. Might my cartridge be getting long in the tooth? I've adjusted for VTF and VTA with little result. I'm not averse to getting a new cartridge in the $1000-$1500 range new/used, but what should I be looking for in the shelf life of this Benz cartridge?

Associated equipment:

VPI HW-19 Mk 4 tt
Sumiko FT-3 tonearm
Hegel 160 integrated
Jolida JD9 Mk 2 phono
Acoustic Zen Adagio speakers
Acoustic Zen interconnects throughout
Decware Styx speaker cables
128x128simao
dill
2,538 posts
 
+1 for Ray's suggestion for Soundsmith. Here is one other outfit that I can recommend too.

http://phonocartridgeretipping.com/index.html
tooblue
1,934 posts
 
As long as you clean your albums and your stylus regularly there is no reason not to expect 1500 to 2500 hours play time out of your cart. I currently have 2200 hours on a ZYX Universe that I keep waiting for it to let me know it’s time, still sounds sweet as ever. As a rule of thumb, as I look to buy a used cart I always figure in the cost of a retip and or a rebuild and buy from the original owner with perfect feedback. +2 for Soundsmith.
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
It could be the vacuum tubes in the Jolida are going bad. IME you'll hear them deteriorate the way you described first. Just a thought since the cartridge should be good beyond 700 hours. Tubes on the other hand are unpredictable. 
dill
2,538 posts
 
If you still have the crappy Chinese 12AX7's in the Jolida, find yourself a pair of Telefunken's. These are the best by far in this preamp and I have tried many different ones in mine. I do, however doubt if your problem is a tube issue as12AX7's are very long lasting tubes, especially in this application.
mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,926 posts
 
If you're hearing distortion from stylus wear it's likely to be much more apparent on the inner grooves. That was very apparent when I had an old, worn Koetsu. Try to determine if there's a correlation between the distortion and inner grooves. 

700 hours should be perfectly fine in *optimal* playing conditions, but there's no telling how many actual hours it had before you, or how exactly it was treated / cleaned.
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