What's the 911 on re-tips?

I have done exactly this a few times lately, with great results, also using and highly recommending Steve Leung and his son Ray at VAS. Happily for me, they are only 35 minutes from my house and we have become friends.

I don’t do big money cartridges, but the process/results/savings/fun is the same for my level of spending.

See one, first send link to Steve: can you rebuild this? He answers right away: Yes, or stay away from that model. I don’t waste any more of his time, That’s all I want to know to pounce or forget it; knowing his price later will be fair, and importantly, his turn around time significantly shorter than other highly recommended sources.

Plenty of time to look every day, I’m retired, buy used, take risks, so far quite lucky. Two deals didn’t work out, got all my money back. I use my credit card with best protection to fund Paypal for double protection. That helps me take risks. Don’t send money, get an invoice for goods, then pay, even offer to pay the PayPal sellers fee for the increasing number of ’PayPal reluctant’ sellers.

Watching, Waiting, Check with Steve, jumping on a good deal is part 1.

I take the long view: Get great deal/Rebuild Now/Wait till I wear something else out

Make Offer, Pay asking price, you already know what they go for.

yesterday: received AT33PTG MONO MC with missing tip from Yahoo Japan/Aleado. Make an aleado account, transfer enough money in your account, bid/lose/win. Cheap to start, then add shipping in japan to aleado (they verify it is what seller said it was), bank transfer fee, aleado fee, EMS air to USA: $68. total.

I will have Steve put an advanced stylus (probably new aluminum cantilever too). For modern Mono LPs. Existing Grado MONO Elliptical for older mono lps.

recently: got great deal on Shure 97xe NOS, (dropped my prior one behind the bookcase in my office). My favorite MM Elliptical with Damped Brush. Took it to friend’s house to show him how well Shure’s damped brush plays his seriously warped lps. One of us snapped the cantilever before the 1st play.

Oh well, I had Steve put an advanced stylus on it. Most important to me is retaining the damped brush for warped lps. btw, Jico told me their brush for my Shure V15VxMR SAS on Boron is NOT damped.

About to receive AT14s MM body, no stylus. reverb: $65. delivered. Checking hifishark every morning for ATN14, shibata on boron, they pop up occasionally. If not, I will buy inexpensive removable elliptical that fits and have Steve change it to advanced stylus. I know I like that cartridge, I just jumped on a separate body and separate ATN14 shibata stylus when they showed up simultaneously. My friend listened, bought it from me. I knew he would buy it, otherwise I would have kept it.

Having Steve and Ray in my back pocket, I recently took a risk on a used Sumiko Talisman S, Van den Hul on sapphire tube cantilever. Seller had someone with a Shure Microscope verify stylus worn, estimated additional 500 hrs till retip needed. My new favorite cartridge.

All these beat the heck out of full price, and in the case of the 97xe, result is better than NOS elliptical, ONLY possible via rebuild. Fun too.