Teach me about cartridge 'retipping'

@technick, I remember him well and he was a wealth of information. I understand why he was kicked off AK and he was warned repeatedly about selling his services in the TT forum. But to delete all of his post was a terrible thing to do.

BillWojo

Speakers can be upgraded with different parts. Amplifiers, CD players, phono stages, turntables, tone arms- even speaker cables, power cords and interconnects can be upgraded in the aftermarket. Only phono cartridges cannot.

Re-tippers can buy only what’s available from Namiki or Ogura (or maybe some others), while the cartridge manufacturers can order exclusive parts patented/manufactured for their own cartridges only. But the question is not even a quality of parts, but a calculation of mass, resonances etc that only original designed can do manufacturing/voicing his own high-end cartridge. Sometime this is a long process and they try different parts before choosing what they are using. Why do you think re-tipper in his garage can do better if he don’t even have an access to those exclusive parts manufactured only for the specific cartridge designers?

You can upgrade weak parts in the products (like amps whatever), not sure how you can upgrade a reference class, you can only change something pretending for upgrade, but only certain kind of people have this habit, most of them are very strange, the best of them design their own products instead of upgrading others.

Cartridge is the most important part in analog chain.

Everyboby knows JICO, their stylus SAS (bury, boron, sapphire) replacements for old MM cartridges is an upgrade for mediocre cartridges, but not an upgrade for top of the line reference class cartridges. Many original styli are much better than best SAS replacement. With MM you can immediately change your stylus and compare, with MC people are waiting for their cartridges from a re-tipper for a 1-5 month and they can’t compare re-tipped and the original, but i think it’s very important to compare side by side the original and re-tipped sample (I did that with some very rare re-tipped/refurbished MM).

Another weird habit is to invest over $1k to a $300 cartridge, some people love it. Denon 103 is one of them, instead of buying a nice $1500 cartridge they are happy to invest $1000-1500 into a $300 cartridge and raving about the result they are hearing. 

Chakster,

The other important point to ponder is: not all things are known about how to upgrade a cartridge, nor is all lore and intelligence applied available only to the makers of the past.

New things or new ideas do show up in the now, not just in the past. New thinking can create new advantage, in newer products. It’s not just a rehashing of the old, with a set of now limited resources, all downturn...as you are saying.

As in, all is not lost.

Eg, if I come up with a new understanding and then apply it on a current build or design, there is as a chance or opportunity.. that it may exceed some of the cartridges of old, in some given important ways. Ways that people can clearly hear.

It’s not all about a downturn and forgetting our history, and losing the lore and physical devices, etc...in the mists of time.

Advantage and change and elevation from the old can come from different directions. (delineated specific ways, of course, not some nebulous nonspecific overall)

So, if i say I’ve taken a current design and made changes that elevate it from what is currently at the peak of lets say MM design (that is current manufacture), there is no real credible reason to doubt that to the point of outright dismissal, especially if one has not listened to it.

To say such a thing would be disingenuous and misleading for all the wrong reasons, and none of the right ones. It would ruin the logic of your position by being a falsifiable position. Falsifiable via listening, possibly... but immediately falsifiable by logic alone.

New thinking and new application of said new thinking can/may/might elevate to new levels, it can/may/might make the current deficits less of a problem....if done correctly.

In effect, If someone comes along and is doing their best to take current design to a new level and reclaim some of the older lost ground and quality levels, in some way... where.. if you sit there and say, as a response... "it's no good compared to what used to be available, and that one must try to only buy the very limited number of old NOS cartridges in order to get to the best", well, that's just disingenuous and damaging to the potential of the now, and the future. 

It can be interpreted by some, as saying 'only older things are good, all your new stuff is junk'. To judge without reason, in some small to possibly major way, depending on how it is voiced. I personally don't think that is your intent, but it seems to be sounding to any reader as being that way.

Could you please recall exact models you’re talking about. And why don’t you explain in details what are you talking about? What new ideas, materials, please tell us.

Because I can simply recall the best MM cartridges that are unbeatable today and the materials used in their design also not available today!

This thread is about re-tipping, don’t forget. Cartridge designers like Jonathan Carr explained why you altering the sound when you change a tip or the whole cantilever,

If you want to go off-topic:

Let me know if you ever tried this brand new cartridge or that one.
Very interesting design, the only problem is the price, this is how people sell new ideas today, are you willing to buy $14 000 cartridge ?

No one can provide any information about this new material for cantilevers, can you tell anything? It’s NEW, do you think it’s better ?

Probably everyone agree that Boron is one of the best material for cantilever, but nothing new here. Also nothing new in the shape of the diamonds, same old thing. What else ? A coid wire ? Also nothing new. A low impedance MM, or high impedance MM... Moving Iron, Induced Magnet, Moving Flux whatever, nothing new.

I really want to read what is new in MM/ MI design today that wasn't there in the 80's ? 

I’ve already revolutionized conductor design by using liquid metal conductors which are, literally, purely a quantum beast. Not seen before anywhere, in anything. so new, it is not yet explored and can produce effects and conditions not yet realized.

For example, if making an inductor out of it, things get bizarre and don’t follow the expected rules.

There’s a thousand new patents and ideas hiding in there, yet people are clueless to the potential that is openly displayed and freely given.

(As an aside, a critical one...the US military made gaseous antenna system for their tanks in the 1990's. the gaseous antennas have no direction limits,  no frequency limits, and no multiplexing limits.It  disappeared. It disappeared into black ops, black budgets. One of untold thousands like it. Stolen from our collective human future.

This one, liquid metal as conductor ..has similar aspects to it. Think of it as a heavy mass gas.

As... I did it openly, into an ignorant world, and it managed to stay out in the open. For almost 15 years, so far.)

Where ignorance tries to beat me to death in the streets for being a charlatan. Such insanity and projections.


I’’m selling a $229 cartridge, with a return policy, if people don’t like it. It has some new ideas in it.

Just to get started.

It has to start small and pay for itself, as no one in their right mind, would create $500 MM phono cartridges by spending $10 million to get there. Just so a few people with influential opinions about sound quality.. could pass judgement on it ...and make or break the $10 million effort. That would be insanity.

No one, in this market, is going to do that for you. They’ll never recover their investment.

So it has to start small and pay for itself, as it goes...IF it gets the chance to go, at all.

I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, the return policy says it all.

IF I want my effort to take it further, then all you are going to be receiving at this time, is getting a chance to purchase it. You will not be getting the information, or thinking on why it’s an improvement. As that, is the ’thousand free patents’ end of the ideas and thinking pool. Stolen thunder. I don’t owe you that. No one does.

As that that would kill the effort before it begins. All that would happen is theft and loss of my chance to begin and take it somewhere better and greater. Intellectual property theft is a big problem for the start of any enterprise.