Diamond Stylus Enters the 4th Dimension


So, I went to play a Chet Baker Album last night. Lowered the arm, flipped og the mute switch and.......GARBAGE!

The cantilever looked fine. On examination with my USB microscope I confirmed a sullen fact. The diamond had gone AWOL. There is just a little glue left on the end of the cantilever which is completely undamaged. It is a Clearaudio Charisma cartridge.

Anyone ever have this happen? I played records the day before no problem. I did not take anything to the stylus brush or otherwise. I do use an Audio Technica tonearm lift but it's trigger mechanism is so light. I can't believe that did it and it certainly should not do it. IMHO the cantilever should break before the diamond gets knocked off. 

The cartridge is four months old and I got it from Elusive Disc. It has a two year warranty. Here is where the rubber hits the road. 
128x128mijostyn
I've had one cartridge failure and I have a local friend that's has had one -- caused by a violent drop onto a record in my case, and a fuzzy sweater sleeve snag in my friend's case. In both cases the stylus popped clean off the boron cantilever, which remained intact. The glue bond to boron seems to be one of the weak points of the cartridge assembly -- the other weak point is cheap thin-walled aluminum pipe cantilever, which you often see bent or crumpled.

But that definitely SHOULDN'T have happened to you in the absence of shock or trauma! That sounds like a bad glue job. 
I bought a second hand Van Den Hul cartridge and experienced the same thing. The seller refunded my money and I sent it off to Van Den Hul for a rebuild.

I've snapped the cantilever off my Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood not once, but twice. I'll never buy another cartridge where the cantilever is that exposed. 
Buy something from Sound-Smith, Peter Ledermann. He repairs
stylus tip when you break them. Most do not. PS his stuff is good!!
If you Google Stylus has separated from a Boron Cantilever, there are a variety of Cases to found with differing information.
A search for Cartridge Model may well show up added information, as I found on my owned C'b, I referred to previously. 

There are also reports to be found on Broken Boron Cantilevers, but I don't see this being my case.

With the discovered information to evaluate.
 I chose to use Macro Photography to capture images of the C'b Cantilever End to assess if it was a Loss of Adhesion or a Broken Boron Tip.

The witnessing that the Bevel End on the Boron Cantilever was almost a Perfect Flat Surface, I believed a Loss of Adhesion had been the cause of the detachment of the Stylus.

Note: The disturbing amount of contamination witnessed on the Cantilever and Housing, especially where the Cantilever Enters inside the Housing was surreal.

The Rebated Side Walls of the Housing, Cantilever and Bobbin ? 
was covered in a excessive build up of granular particles.

I can only believe these will be effecting the freedom of movement, and a loss of performance will be the result.

As a result of this discovery, I am intending on doing the same inspection of my other rebuilt MC Cartridge.
It will soon have about 200 Hours usage, and if there is any contamination evidence, I will send it with the C'b for a Inspection and if required a Thorough Clean. 

The Macro Images were forwarded to a Repair Service for a evaluation from a Technician.

The reports returned from all contacted has been very promising, and the offer of a repair was made.

One Service rejected the opportunity to carry out any work,
as their report, has been very clear about the added risks for the Rebuild, because of the compromised surface to adhere a Stylus onto.
An additional operation of a Cantilever Exchange on the
C'b Brand of Cartridge that I own, is imposing an increased risk to a successful operation.
As the internal Parts for this Brand are not off the shelf items.
After my reassurances offered to the Rebuild Service, we were able to maintain a communication on the possibility of a repair being undertaken by their service.

I can now get a repair done using various services and a variety of methods.

I wish to avoid the Bonding a 'New Stylus Only' onto the insitu Cantilever.

I am hoping to have a New Cantilever and Stylus with a improved method for the setting of the Stylus, as the C'b was left without a Stylus following approx 600 hours of usage. 
In my mind, I had this as a 1200 Hour Cartridge if given the ideal working conditions, before a concern for the performance of the Stylus was to be questioned.

I hope the above helps with helping the OP to evaluate when making a decision on their present situation.
     
Dissolve Adhesive Story:

I have a Vintage Audio-Technica AT440ML, microline on aluminum.

Unused for 20 years (I preferred brush feature of Shure V15VxMR)

Recently revived it. The cantilever, and up into the body of the cartridge was FULL of black junk. FULL

I started with Stylus cleaner, got some junk out, but still a mess after several attempts.

I grabbed a can of spray Contact Cleaner, watched thru my shop magnifying light, it dissolved the junk off via it's chemical formulation and the spray force. Several rounds, spritz, wait, spritz. Cantilever still a black color, and surface 'rough' viewed magnified.

Finally, I saw the final layer of textured black 'skin' peel away from the aluminum cantilever. It seemed like spraying Brake Cleaner.

What have I done? Did I dissolve the suspension? Dissolve the adhesive? What did I have to lose?

Next, a play off against the Shure with new Jico SAS. Amazing, sounds great, it's on my Office Vertical TT, Mitsubishi LT-5V. Less dust up here.