KISEKI PURPLE NS your reviews....

my conclusions come from my experience, my cartridges didn't sing after partial retip, but poeple need to get top hifi to hear the difference. I had to retip a benz LPS a few month ago, ALL retipping services answer me the same thing " we don't have microridge diamond + boron cantilever but ours diamond cut is much better, you will not hear the difference" that makes me laught. And some of them didn't even told me that they will mount a different cut, it's not serious at all. One time I had a used ZYX univers with a VDH diamond or zyx with shibata, but who cares, it's a diamond after all !!

@andychris  Great post!

I feel the same about re-tipping and refurbishing, even after cartridge designers like J.Carr explained why it's a bad idea, some people still think that re-tippers in their garage are smarter than cartridge designers. We're in minority on this forum, the majority of people are happy about re-tipping with completely different diamonds/cantilevers. They are happy to pay extra money to convert clever design to some frankenstein, because re-tipper said it will be even better. One of the reason, in my opinion, is that only a few people can actually compare original sample to refurbished sample, in this case they must have both cartridges on hands, but after 5 month they can't even remember the sound of their ex original cartridge. And re-tipper will say that it must be better after burn-in (100 hrs). To my surprise many people are happy to deal with less known and less qualified re-tippers they are often advertise on this forum after the job is done. I think some audiophiles does not have enough cartridges, they want to stick to one or two and happy to re-tip them many times (instead of finding something new/better).   

Dear edgewear, despite the fact(?) that I consider myself to
be well informed I had no idea that diamond cantilevers were
available. You wrote their price in euro's (1000) so I assume 
that in one of the ''euro-group'' countries those can be ordered
or retipped. Can you provide the address? I am willing to pay
1000 euro for my Black Heart because of the jubilant story of
our Aussie member about diamond cantilevers. BTW I also own
Sony XL 88 D (grin).

Andychris, While there hardly any standards by cart producers
I assume that they use the same ''joint pipe'''. This may be
caused by the jewel companies who produce ''standard'' 
(boron) cantilevers qua dimensions. So, actually, their job of
repair services is easy (earned) money (+/- 500 euro) for
gluing the ''combo'' in the joint pipe.  The only thing they need
to be careful with is the length of the cantilever and stylus
orientation . This, of course, is my assumption.

Addition, I just checked Namiki site and discovered for myself
 and to my disappointment that their diamond cantilever with
micro ridge stylus cost $ 2510. I am, alas, not capable  to 
''do it yourself'' retipping so need to add retiping cost. So my
initial enthusiasm soon died down. 

Dear Nandric, that is a shocking figure. My information came from Daniele Montebovi of cartridgelab in Rome, Italy. He did some excellent work for me on an old Dynavector Ultimo DV-30C and we developped an interesting email correspondence about exotic cartridges and diamond cantilevers, including the 'one piece' variety used in the XL-88D. That is now unobtainium, but he said he could restore it (as well as the regular XL-88 and other suitable cartridges) with the Namiki diamond cantilever for €1250. So my memory was a bit optimistic, but that's still a long way from $2500. If your quote is now the going price I will also need to reconsider.

There's an important difference between 'not skimping' and 'getting ripped off'. You have to draw the line somewhere...

I feel the same about re-tipping and refurbishing, even after cartridge designers like J.Carr explained why it's a bad idea, some people still think that re-tippers in their garage are smarter than cartridge designers. We're in minority on this forum, the majority of people are happy about re-tipping with completely different diamonds/cantilevers. They are happy to pay extra money to convert clever design to some frankenstein, because re-tipper said it will be even better. One of the reason, in my opinion, is that only a few people can actually compare original sample to refurbished sample, in this case they must have both cartridges on hands, but after 5 month they can't even remember the sound of their ex original cartridge. And re-tipper will say that it must be better after burn-in (100 hrs). To my surprise many people are happy to deal with less known and less qualified re-tippers they are often advertise on this forum after the job is done. I think some audiophiles does not have enough cartridges, they want to stick to one or two and happy to re-tip them many times (instead of finding something new/better).  

Chakster
Have to agree with you here, as aural memory is very fickle and you certainly cannot remember exactly how that cart you sent for a retip sounded at its best, an idea sure but not exact.

All one has to do is look at the number of carts you see listed that say" just retipped, very few hours".
Says it all really.

Now I did use the services of VAS to REPAIR my Koetsu simply because it had gone open on one channel, this does not alter its character but was well worth $400 to have it back to 2 channel performance instead of left channel only.... lol.
This is a totally different type of repair work.