KISEKI PURPLE NS your reviews....

Parrotbee, For the Lapis Lazuli some Italian ask 15000 euro;
for the Black Heart 5000 ( German ''audio-mark'') . I think edgewear
should not save on retip. His Lapis Lazuli deserve the best possible
retip.

With a simple retip, just stylus and diamond, the cartridge will never sound the same as original. Don't forget that they will cut the original cantilever, insert an aluminum little tube, insert the new stylus and glue it. The sound now is passing throught the glue and the aluminum little tube. Imagine that manufacturers do all they can to minimize the weight of stylus and try to get the best material, and now this incredible piece of ingenering that is a stylus is cut and glued. The cartridge will never sounds the same again even with the same diamond and same cantilever material. But sometime it's the only solution. The best it to do a total refurbish or trade for a new one. I had many retipped cartridge and was always disapointed with the sound, they have lost their original magic.

andychris, ''Assumptions and conclusions''. Everyone start from
some assumption considered to be true and deduce form this
assumption his conclusions. However logic state: if the assumption
is not true, then also conclusions can't be true.
The MC kinds have the so called ''joint pipe'' in which cantilever/stylus 
combo is glued. This is part is also called ''moving
part'' connected with the generator with tension wire. 
You obviously confused MM kinds with MC kinds. By MM kinds one
need to ''cut'' original cantilever and glue the new one in the old
cantilever. That is not the case by MC kinds. One need to remove
the old cantilever from the joint pipe and glue the new one instead.
Those cantilever/styli combos are produced by suppliers not by
cart manufacturers. So one can see the same cantilever/stylus
combo by Benz LP-s as well by Lyra's Atlas. 
''The same'' does not always mean ''identical'' but in this case
one can state ''the same cantilevers/styli combos'' are produced
by two ''big jewel companies'' in Japan who supply all cart
manufacturers. This ''may'' lead to other conclusions then yours.

Dear Nandric, I won’t skimp on a retip. The Lapis is a gorgeous sounding cartridge, even with the non-original boron cantilever and vdH stylus. It’s still a long way from needing one, but when that time comes I will definitely go for a diamond cantilever. Namiki produces these (again) combined with their best refined contact stylus. I have asked around and this retip should cost around €1000. Serious money, but probably worth it.

BTW: the Namiki assembly is not of the ’one piece’ variety (like Sony XL-88D), but neither was the original diamond cantilever/stylus of the Lapis, so this option should bring it very close to its original specs.

I owned the Purpleheart NS, and two of my friends had also purchased ones for themselves. One had their stylus fall out. Another had the suspension fail in less than a year. Mine had a frequency response curve that looked like a curved cross - the right and left channels literally "crossed" each other at about 11 KHz, which was the only point where the two channels were ever close to each other. I asked AJ Van den Hul to look it over and he said there was a problem with the suspension. As I was able to get my money back, I did. Three bum carts in my immediate circle was too much for me to risk it again. I'm envious of those who got good ones.