SoundSmith Sapphire cantilever upgrade to CA Virtuoso?


Hello,

I have a CA Virtuoso cartridge that I am thinking of replacing or upgrading with a SoundSmith's new Sapphire cantilever with a Contact line stylus or change the stylus myself with the AT-VM95ML.

Does anyone have experience with these stylus and whether they would provide an upgrade to the Virtuoso?

Thanks, Drew Harty




drewharty
I will likely upgrade the cartridge at some point but thought a new stylus might be a temporary step, as the cart needs one and I am upgrading other parts of my system now.

That said, I haven't read a single bad review of others who have had Soundsmith refurbish their cartridge. I am just looking for someone who some opinions about Sapphire cantilever with the Contact line stylus on a Virtuoso cart.


Normally people refurbish MC cartridges with SoundSmith, except for a few very popular vintage MM models where the original Ruby cantilever was an option from the manufacturer back in the day. Grace cartridges for example. There was an original Grace RUBY and SoudSmith upgrade is also RUBY (with different stylus tip). This is OK. 

Your Clear Audio has Audio-Technica motor inside, you want to upgrade Aluminum cantilever with Sapphire cantilever. Maybe it will be better, maybe not. Why do you want to keep using Virtuoso (even refurbished) ? Did you try to compare this model to anything else ? 

There are Clear Audio cartridges with Boron cantilever, maybe you can add Boron instead of Sapphire ? 

You'd better ask Peter at SoundSmith what is the optimal. 


I broke the cantilever on my Virtuoso Wood and had the Ruby retip done by Soundsmith.  It sounded very nice, but I'm not sure I'd consider it an "upgrade".  If you want to upgrade, get a different cartridge.  If you've broken the cantilever, Andy Kim also does a nice job of re-tipping.
Dear @drewharty : I owned the Virtuoso ( same At motor than the 95. ) and own the 95 with elliptical stylus tip and the 95ML version and I can tell you that's a true improvement with better quality performance levels.
In the other side is really unexpensive.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.
I would send it in for repair, then keep as a spare.

I would upgrade to something else if I wanted an upgrade