Anyone else having trouble getting cartridges back they sent for repair?

Has cartridge repair ever been a big thing?

Unfortunately the demand seems to far exceed the capacity of those who do it. Seems par for the course as best I can tell.

Myself, I’ve never had a cartridge repaired. If one goes or I don’t like it anymore I just replace it. I will not go into 4 digits for any cartridge for this reason. Its just one of those things those who do may have to deal with along with all the rest that goes with high end phono rigs.

It’s usually the stylus that goes first with cartridges. One used to be able to easily buy replacement styli for most any popular cartridge. There are still places to do this on the Internet but I am guessing many popular high end carts are not designed to be able to easily replace the stylus when it wears? If so what’s up with that? You pay top dollar for a cart that will have a limited life (they all do) and no easy way to repair it when needed? Does not sound very high end in terms of usability and customer satisfaction if so.

Another high end audio consumer trap? Please correct me if I am wrong about this.

Finding (replaceable) stylus is , in my opinion, better

option.

Yes, that was the point I was trying to make. I think we agree.  It used to be pretty much all cartridges of all types had replaceable styli years ago during the "golden age".

Cleeds,

Thanks for that info. I knew the stylus replacement train jumped the tracks at some point. But at least with the Denon DL103R performance is high and cost to replace is not horrible.

I guess being an older guy who remembers how things were back in the day does not help. I helped hundreds of customers replace their styli back then for very nominal cost. MC carts were still quite rare back then. Times change.

Are there any companies these days that feature great sounding carts with reasonable cost for user to replace the stylus easily themselves? That’s something that would appeal to me next time I am in the market for a phono cart.

Chak,

Sorry to hear that. I have not attempted to replace a stylus for many years so I am not up on those things. But its a disappointment to me that things are they way they are in regards to keeping phono carts running well especially since stylus wear is normal and nothing new. That’s why things used to be the way they were.

I guess its like owning a luxury car. TCO is much higher, not just the selling price. Except timely good service is part of the deal.

I guess high end phono carts are a very niche thing in comparison these days so it is what it is.

But people should know these things before drinking the high end vinyl kool aid these days to avoid regret perhaps later with certain more esoteric carts that will be hard to replace or get serviced when inevitably needed.

When my Denon DL103R goes up finally one day, I will simply just replace it with another.

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