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What should I do?

Recently, at a brick and mortar audio dealer, I listened to a high-end moving coil cartridge.  It sounded really good, and I was impressed.  The retail for this cartridge was more then I wanted to spend ($4500), but to make a long story short, the dealer offered me a rare deal, ($2500+tax) brand new, so I bought it.  Got it home, and carefully installed it last night.  I listened to it for about 2.5 hours.  It is really good, but I don't think (at this point), that it's that much better then my old cartridge (at least, not yet).
Ok, so this morning I played around with the loading.  Better, but still I'm not happy.  Now, with only about 5 hours on this new Cartridge, I realize that it's not broken in yet.  I'm looking for input as to your thoughts on how I should proceed.
1.  Are cartridges purchased from high-end dealers returnable (I don't want to create any bad feelings with this dealer, since he gave me such a good price)?
2.  I was told 50 hours of break-in time for this Cartridge.  Should I wait the break-in period to make any decisions?
Any thoughts on how you think I should proceed are appreciated! 


louisl
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,376 posts
 
What cartridge, turntable and phono preamp are you using?
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cleeds
5,943 posts
 
louisl
Are cartridges purchased from high-end dealers returnable ...
That was an option with some dealers, once upon a time, but I’m not aware of any dealer who would offer such assurance today.

It might be helpful for you to identify this mystery "high-end moving coil cartridge."
tooblue
1,922 posts
 
The hardest thing for me to break in are cartridges, I have a few moderate priced carts that will and did sound better than my top tier carts until they were broken in, for me it's just a grueling process. That kind of price break from a dealer is probably just a sign of the Times and sounds like a really good deal. Enjoy the music
audition__audio
1,465 posts
 
You cant judge the cartridge until is actually past break in. You need to experiment with loading as the proper setting can sometimes be surprising and not what is suggested by specs. You also need to have a system of sufficient quality to appreciate the more sublime aspects of a better cartridge. Details about your entire system would also be helpful.

Something to keep in mind is the conditioning of your tonearm cable. We just bought a Audio Kharma conditioner and the most profound improvement we have ever heard was the conditioning of this wire. 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
If it doesn't sound good right out of the box odds are it never will. That goes for everything. Even cartridges. You should be loving it from the first side. Then loving it even more after you've got it nicely dialed in with VTA and loading. Then from that point on there should be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months of one night after another being surprised at catching yourself enjoying aspects of music you never noticed before.

That's what it should be like. Unless you are prone to buyers remorse. Which tends to be more likely on impulse purchases. Which between the way you said zero about doing any research, or even that you were looking for a cartridge, and seemed to have bought based on price without even asking about terms, sounds like an impulse purchase to me. 

Don't really know what you should do. What I would do is pay more attention and consider a little more carefully next time.
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