Off center (not bent!) stylus?

i'll pile on

bye bye cart

next

As mentioned above, I’m not sure why you’re putting yourself through all of this. You can no doubt find a cartridge suitable to your tastes and be done with it.

I assume however, that you are compelled to use this cartridge and you will most likely send it to Peter for inspection.

I’d be most concerned about the unknown condition of the stylus (and resultant the health of my records), and not the mis-alignment.  I’m not a fan of buying used cartridges or used tooth brushes ;-)

I can’t speak to the issue of how much sonic change would result from a re-tip (assuming Peter would adjust the suspension to re-align it). Any material change or stylus profile difference will likely change the sound, and Peter will tell you as much.

The off-center issue can be addressed in one of two ways: (1) by aligning the cartridge with a protractor, or (2) by the risky procedure of straightening it yourself.

With respect to #1, aligning the cartridge won’t change the mis-alignment of the motor assembly and the resultant channel imbalance and slightly compromised channel separation.

The motor assembly (magnet + coils) are designed so that performance is optimized when everything is theoretically perfect: a cantilever/magnet that is centered between the coils.

Now, it’s the extraordinary exception that any cartridge (at any price) is manufactured to theoretical perfection, so don’t sweat this too much. Yours is off by quite a bit however, but only you can say how important channel balance/separation is to you. It’s your hi-fi.

As far as #2 is concerned, if you are reasonably steady handed and not terribly risk averse, you can use a toothpick to see if you can gently coax the cantilever back into position.

In summary, if you align using either of the two methods, your only risk of damaging your records will be from the condition of the stylus. Method #1 may mean you don’t have as much channel separation as is inherent in the design, and messing up method #2 may result in a broken cantilever.

... Thom @ Galibier Design

1+ Thom, Hauie, you are wasting your money sending it for inspection and I doubt Peter would touch it. Even if he could repair it he would tell you that it was not worth spending that kind of money on. For perhaps $100 you may be able to get a new stylus at LP Gear. There is no way to know how close it will sound to the original as we do not have an original to compare it to. I might even sound better! 

@thom_at_galibier_design thanks so much for the detailed response that really helped me understand better. The stylus looks intact to me but I am only using a handheld jewelry magnifying glass (I think 40x). In order to really see damage you need something like 100x+ right?

In my further testing with this needle I have started to notice that it seems like it will sometimes fail to settle properly in the groove. In one very severe case I placed the needle in a middle track of a record and practically nothing but muffled thumps came out of the left channel while the right channel seemed fine. This problem was rectified by just raising the needle and dropping it again in the same place.

Does this make sense to folks as a problem that would be caused by this angled cantilever? That it can sometimes fail to catch a groove but once it catches sounds normal?

To the general question of why I am bothering with working through these issues rather than just buying brand new stuff... it's interesting and fun to me! I don't want to simply know that something is damaged I want to know why and how that affects playback.

So all your input is super helpful and maybe I will eventually be convinced to ditch vintage and go new. Or maybe not - who knows. But please feel free to keep firing away as all this is new to me and just helps fill in my (many many many) gaps of understanding.

Keep in mind that those needle drops may leave a click in the record (even when the stylus/cantilever is fine, that's a risk, unless you are dead-eye on the space between tracks). Thom/Galibier explained the issue very clearly in terms of the skew of the motor assembly; his point re the condition of the stylus itself is a good one. The angled cantilever is a little like having a misaligned drive shaft between your motor and the differential/wheels. If it isn't straight on, when running the road (grooves) it isn't going to behave smoothly. And could result in mistracking and explain why you lost signal in one channel. 
It's all good to experiment and have fun but I'd be cautious about damaging your records. I also don't know anything about the quality of replacement stylus assemblies, such as those sold by 3d parties. @chakster would be your man among others on that question. Good luck!