Would you pay more than 25% of MSRP for a used cartridge?
Seems most seller want to price their "low-hour" used cartridges at 50-80% of MSRP. This seems ridiculous to me because there is no sure way to verify these "low-hour" claims. You need to have specialized microscopes and even then it's a just a guestimate if worn or not.
Another point is even a cartridge with 1000+ hours can still sound very good. A worn stylus will mistrack only on certain passages of certain demanding records. So it is nothing obvious.
So why do all these folks price their used cartridges so high? Are folks actually paying these prices?
My max. would be 25% of MSRP for any "low-hour" claim.
The many negative posts here underline the belief that everyone's dishonest. Sad. I misbought an Anna four years ago. It's too heavy for my very light parallel tracking arm. I ran it less than 20 hours (yes really). It just didn't gel. So I marketed it at half retail. Guess what? No takers. I fitted it on my second TT with a heavy Zeta arm and it runs great. But I hardly ever listen to it. |
@clearthinker Why didn't you return your Anna if it wasn't a good match? I would think if you are buying new then that includes a no questions asked return policy. Even when I buy used I make sure the seller is ok with returns . It's always the dishonest ones who push-back about that. |
Take it to a specialist with a good microscope. The specialist can tell you the condition of the stylus, the suspension and the magnet coil assembly if it is a "naked" body cartridge. Retipping and rebuilding cartridges are expensive services. Caveat emptor. The cartridge could have been dropped, dragged across a record, bounced off the turntable or misaligned in the tonearm. |
