Retip for zyx

Hi Nandric: Namiki, Ogura or Gyger can and will build completed cantilever assemblies. But regarding the designs of the cantilever assemblies that can be delivered, although these can be straight out of the catalogs (in which case retippers can buy the same item as the cartridge builder), there is a good chance that the designs may be unique, in which case no cartridge builder nor retipper is able to obtain the item other than the original designer.

In the case of a Titan, for example, I design the stylus shape and specify the block dimensions and angles, I make the drawings for how the stylus should be affixed to the cantilever (including the adhesive specifications), and I make the drawings for every other bit of the cantilever assembly, too. I supply various components and raw materials to Ogura (cantilever itself, coil former, suspension wire etc.), and have Ogura build the cantilever assembly using my materials and my drawings.

Since neither the design nor many of the subcomponents and materials are Ogura's, Ogura cannot deliver this cantilever assembly (nor the individual bits and pieces) to anyone other than us.

>There are no myths by the cart retips except when one likes to believe in them.

And yet I see no retipper pointing out that the included angle of the stylus affects the life expectancy, that ruby or sapphire has close to double the mass of boron, or other such considerations. We used to build cartridges with ceramic whisker-reinforced duraluminum cantilevers (with much closer mass compared to boron than sapphire's mass is to boron), and when we changed our cartridges over to boron cantilevers, we redesigned the entire damper and suspension system - materials, shapes, number of dampers, everything.

In my experience, to take an aluminum or boron-cantilevered cartridge and change the cantilever to sapphire or ruby is heavy-handed in the extreme (grin).

kind regards

Dear Carr, The skills involved are more a question of experience and 'mastership' then of,say, 'the rocket science'.
Van den Hul,Peter Ledermann, Allaerts , Lukatschek and Axel Schurholz are all involved in this 'art' for more than 30 years. I do believe that they all know what is ivolved by a retip as well how to execute them.

Kind regards,

Dear Jcarr: ++++ " Since neither the design nor many of the subcomponents and materials are Ogura's, Ogura cannot deliver this cantilever assembly (nor the individual bits and pieces) to anyone other than us. " ++++

there are persons that or don't read what you posted or just can't understand it.

I fully agree with you on why preserve a Lyra mor VDH: a Lyra or VDH, especially with the top of the line cartridges.

I can agree to re-tip by re-tippers other than the cartridge manufacturer only with lower/lesser models in the cartridge line.

I don't know where the Airy3 is but seems to me that could be a cartridge for a re-tipper if the re-tip price is way lower that a change it for the Universe. I'm only saying because I'm not aware on the ZYX cartridge lines and how are positioned in between and in the other side perhaps the Truemaineiac audio system can't honor the Universe quality performance level.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

R, the basic economic options are $3K for new ZYX Airy3, so trade-in is $2100 (retail x 70%), $300 re-tip ZYX see how it plays, or discount on universe from $5K or so. It would seem worth the risk to spend $300 to see how the re-tip might sound recognizing the aforementioned inconsistencies that will be introduced. I think my system is up for the universe but maybe not the wallet right now. One other idea is to get the ZYX re-tipped and then get something else (Koetsu?) for the sake of variety.

Dear Truemaineiac: Koetsu is way different and maybe for the kind of music you like could not match very well, there are several options like Lyra or Van Den Hul: both great performers. Other alternative is Transfiguration Phoenix.

Yes, 300.00 for the re-tip is very tempt.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.