Yuour cartridge for Reed 3P "12 Cocobolo

Cheers Chakster
I asked myself sometimes if the Silverbase will be an improvement; also me in the past I used an Airy 3 so we made a similar journey in analog domain.
my actual turntable is a Feickert Blackbird.
since I'm curious... where exactly you send the cartridge to Japan for service? maybe in the future it will useful to know for me; here in Italy we have an expert for retipping but he don't make service to Zyxs...
best
Marco

Just noticed this thread. I have a 12" 3P in cocobola and use it with the Benz LP-s to great effect. The Benz weighs in at 16.5 gm as I recall with a compliance of 15. Strange combo. The Reed handles it fine.

Marco, it's stated everywhere that ZYX distributors and Nakatsuka-San support only models with real serial numbers (no support for grey market products like those from ebay in hong kong). If you have cartridges from official ZYX distributors they can take care of it (in case of retip/service questions). ZYX retip policy is interesting, they do not retip old cartridge, they will supply brand new cartridge with new serial number to customers (if you old original is broken). So the cartridge with broken tip must be returned to ZYX in Japan for replacement. It's not cheap, but you pay less for new one - this is what they call retip. If you have no distributor in Italy you can contact Mehran @ SoraSound in USA (he's a top guy in business).

If you preffer retipping old cartridge then Sound Smith can do that for reasonable price, no problem. But it will be no longer ZYX home sound! And if some other vendor has touched original zyx you will no longer get Nakatsuka-san support.

I've had some distortion problems in the right channel with new gray market Airy in the beggining, later the problem dissapeared, maybe it was just burn-in period.

Preamp is very important for cartridges like ZYX, it was a big improvement to use ZYX CPP-1 Pre-Pre (instead of my existing MC stage) and MM stage.

Thank you very much for the detailed informations!
My 4D comes from the past Italian importer so it's ok in the future for substitution/retipping I hope.
Again.. the Italian expert (Mr. Roberto Torlai) can actually make the retipping work; neverthless he admits that sounds will be no longer the Zyx's sound...
my best
Marco

Any happy owners of Miyajima (Kansui or Madake) on Reed 3p "12 could leave a comments? Accordind to updated spects on miyajima website: Compliance of both cartridges (10Hz) = 9×10-6cm/dyne. Miyajima-san said that Reed 3p arm would match the Kansui very well (this is what German distributor of Miyajima told me), but Mr.Vidmantas @Reed is not so optimistic regarding Kansui + Reed combo. Would be nice to read comments from the actual users (especially Madake).