New Carts Have new Base materials, new coil windings etc. Depending how much you have invested into the table, a new cart may be the way to go? I bought a Marantz Table with a decent cart used for $1500.00 I invested $2000 in a new Audio mod series 6 tone arm, and $2500 in a Goldring Ethos SE cart. I am set. The table is a clear audio table made for Marantz so i have a decent table to start with.
Retip or try new
Have been neglecting my analog rig lately due to things various things in life. Just noticed that my 15+ yr old Akiva doesn't sound smooth as it used to - treble becomes harsher, etc. Instead of sending it in for retip / rebuild (never done that before), should I look at something new mid-level? Names come to mind are Hana ML, ART 9xa/xi. Genre is mostly classical (all kinds). Any suggestions?
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Using the 1000 hours of Cartridge use, that is commonly suggested as a period that is the Stylus Life. The Inspection and Follow Up Refurbishment Service from a Third Party Service will be near $450 from and back to the home. Looking at like for like Cart's in relation to the Cart's original value, will be hovering close to $3K. The owner of the Akiva Cart' can experience this for the next 1000 hours at approx $00.45c per hour. Alternatively, have the experience of being the owner of a New Cart' at $3.00 per hour, if extending to such a purchase value. I assume the Akiva owner is informed of the Cart' being strongly suspected of being a Scan-Tech / Lyra Pedigree. Cart's from this Pedigree have loyal followers as does Koetsu's and other Japanese Brands, the era of the Cart' being produced is part of the unique flavour being desired to be maintained. |
@gxleetw So you have the Xono. I owned this unit for a while years ago. IF you have not used this stage at its highest gain level, you should know that it may be noisy. When I tried, I found there to be an audible rush with some low output cartridges. You may be better off with a setting that delivers less gain and with a cart that has a bit more output voltage. |
thanks for the comments. Sounds like rebuilding is worth considering economic-wise. Even it doesn’t sound the “same” - which I don’t remember anyway since SQ degrades overtime, as long as SQ is in a similar league it could be a very good deal than buying new.
My deck is mid-spec Linn LP12 with quite some modifications over the years - Lingo 4, Khan top plate, trampoline 2, Green street subchassis, Ekos 1 arm with updated bearing ( says it’s Ekos 2), Cirkus bearing. Didn’t have chance to A/B with other decks in the recent past. I learned how to tune it up, but didn’t get to it for a while now. Staying with the same cart saves the efforts of alignment a little bit as Linn arm / cart has a third screw.
thank you for the comment. I’ll ask Soundsmith if they offer rebuild (not just retipping ), as I suspect the rubber had gone old.
I had not tried the highest gain with XONO. Since Linn Akiva is medium-output (0.45mv), i had been using just 60 or 64 db gain.
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