Low Hours Phono Cartridges?

Excellent!! Buying a used cartridge is a crapshoot. Look up the stylus and into the cartridge and check for schmutz

. . . and what is exactly "low hours" anyway? Less than 50?100? or? . . . and how does one measure those hours? By counting sides of LPs played? Or do you just take good guess-tamate?

Well, I have my current cartridge for a little over 3 years. It didn't get mounted until 6 months after I bought it. I was too busy with work and other priorities, and my backup cart was mounted already. So I let it sit on the sideline. After it was finally mounted, I was traveling every week Monday through Friday for over a year, so the system basically sat and collected dust.

The traveling was killing me, so I switched job about 18 months ago. Although I work from home just about every day and have cut back my traveling down to 25%. My system still does not get as much use as I would like. Most of the time, I pop in a CD so I can listen while doing other stuff.

Yeah, it's laughable when you think about it. But I think there are many people out there with decent systems but not enough time to enjoy them.

It has become a "luxury" for me to be able to actually sit down and put on an LP to listen. If I get to do that once a week, I would be happy.

So yeah, I would be surprised that my cartridge has more than 100 hours on it. And, I've been thinking about a new cartridge already. Why? Since I can't enjoy my system while traveling, I guess buying new stuff and browsing various boards has become my temporary fixes while traveling. ;-) Can't wait to get home tonight from my trip!

FrankC

I bought a Koetsu Rosewood Signature several years ago from a very helpful Swiss lawyer living in the US. He said 30 hours and I believed him. Have anyone been to Switzerland, even the bus's run exactly to timetable, to the minute. Seriously, it was a great purchase, I used for 3 years and sold at about the same price, with an honest report of useage. Buying used cartridges is a lottery, that is why they are so cheap. If you feel lucky, you can make a great saving.

Buying anything used is a crapshoot, especially on the Internet where you can't examine the piece before buying. I think there is an art to buying off Ebay and Agon. Agon is safer, IMO. Bottom line is that it is a matter of doing your homework. Call the seller. Ask questions. Look at feedback.