Refurbished / Re-tipped Cartridges - Are they worth Buying?

@lalitk Don't let @lewm fool you. He worked at Wuhan  (just kidding)

Lew that rather large drop of glue is a Soundsmith trademark. If you look at this post and compare mounting techniques, Ortofon uses a similar method. https://imgur.com/gallery/stylus-photomicrographs-hmTaO0m  The resin used is similar to what is used to hold carbon fiber strands together and is very light and strong. Notice that Lyra and MySonicLab use an alternative method mounting there stylus in a forked cantilever with much less glue, but the stylus is surrounded in metal. This method certainly does a better job at controlling Zenith, but I could not tell you which is better from an effective mass standpoint. The diamond cantilever of the Ortofon and cactus spine of the hyperion leave no other option. Nonetheless all four are fine sounding cartridges. I ordered the Jico SAS/B stylus for the V15 VMR and will post a picture here. I will be very surprised if it is as clean as these high end styluses. Most of us are use to seeing the swaged styluses of aluminium cantilevers. The aluminum cantilever is compressed and angled at the very tip and the hard stylus pressed right through the soft aluminum. This is relatively easy to do but not as reliable from an orientation perspective. I have seen zenith and SR angles all over the place. 

Mijo, I was under the impression that these re-tippers buy their cantilevers with various styli pre-mounted, for installation on our various cartridges. In other words, I would not have thought the amount of fastener and its placement are choices made at SS. Now, if you ask them to replace only the stylus while preserving the original cantilever (my preference when possible), then yes, SS (or any other retipper)  must orient the stylus and apply the fastener. In the case of my Grace Ruby, I had both the cantilever and stylus replaced, because I bought the cartridge sans any cantilever at all (which made it very cheap, of course). Like I think I said, although the amount of "glue" is disconcerting to look at under my ’scope, the resulting cartridge handily outperforms my other Grace Ruby, which still bears its original cantilever and (elliptical) stylus. What I am probably hearing is the difference between a new OCL stylus and a used elliptical stylus.

The topic of the gob of glue surrounding Namiki/Orbray cantilevers and others comes up pretty often. Clients send me “What’s that?????!!!!!” photos with disparaging remarks about retipping rather often, having no idea that the brand new cartridges are the exact same.

My take on this is that major manufacturers use this method along with half height low profile diamonds typically 0.3mm tall while a standard pass-through stylus diamond length is 0.6mm. Reasonably assume that the epoxy, which is perfectly rigid and forms an excellent bond together with a low profile diamond is lighter than a full length diamond installed/mortised into a slot or hole in a boron or gem cantilever. If the epoxy does not interfere with the contact edges of the stone, the lighter assembly is the better one.

A stronger joint is of course better for sound, but I don’t know if the glue joint is stronger or weaker than a mechanical joint. Some evidence is that it’s weaker because the glued diamonds fall out when exposed to a knock whereas the mechanical ones break the cantilever—at least with boron. With sapphire or ruby, it could go either way.

In any case, from my perspective, I think it’s an advantage if a diamond pops off leaving a cantilever intact because then all I have to do is replace the diamond like with like and go about my life. A broken cantilever is a chore to repair and exposes the naked cartridge to the risk of damage while being repaired. I’ve never damaged one yet, but replacing a diamond alone is a lot easier on the nerves.

Needlestein, aka Groovetickler

If your cartridge costs $500 (like the legendary and wonderful Denon 103R) then you can afford to replace it once the stylus is worn. But if you have a really expensive cartridge ($5K) then it pays to have it re-tipped. I had Groovetickler retip my expensive cartridge, and I also had my inexpensive AT33MONO cartridge upgraded with a boron/micro ridge stylus which put this on par with mono cartridges costing 3x as much.