Cartridge repair by Moscow based Roman??


Has anyone tried him? There is a long thread on another forum...looks like there are quite a few good cartridge repairers around, and Roman is a new discovery.

http://bit.ly/32frJ5q

My cartridge was passed over as unrepairable by Soudsmiths, and am wondering why not to take a chance with Roman.
cool_jeeves

Showing 5 responses by hdm

I have had communication with Roman and I doubt that he would be the best choice for a repair job. Probably very good for a simple retip involving change of cantilver/stylus but not necessarily a repair. 

I have had retips done by both Peter L at Soundsmith and Andy Kim at Needle Clinic, both with excellent results but Andy was also able to repair a cartridge (a dead channel) that Soundsmith made an attempt on and was unable to. 

For repair work I'd be inclined to contact Andy, or possibly Steve Leung at VAS Audio as I've read a number of positive comments on repair work that he has done as well. 

Andy also has very quick turnaround time and by all accounts, Steve Leung does as well. 

Personally, I would only ship to Expert Stylus if I was in the UK or Europe. 

Chakster makes some valid points but his comments on the Denon 103(R) conical are absurd. That cartridge\stylus can easily be run for 800-1000 hours with careful cueing and clean vinyl. The 300 hour statement is ridiculous. The Denon conical is one of the best conicals out there-it is far superior to cheap bonded conicals that you'll find on $50-$100 cartridges. 

It is not capable of the same kind of information retrieval as a high quality line contact or microridge (which will last much longer than the Denon conical) but it's not going to wear out in 300 hours unless grossly abused. 
Seems odd to me.

If the body was not damaged and the cartridge has continuity in both channels, unless the cantilever was snapped literally inside the cartridge body (ie. there is no visible cantilever outside the cartridge body) this should be a relatively simple repair for any of the decent retippers in terms of grafting a new cantilever (preferably boron IMO) and stylus onto what is left of the old cantilever. 

If you have no exposed cantilever left, then it's a different situation.

Good luck. 
@jperry 

Absolutely, and I did read that. As Chakster pointed out, any cartridge is going to have to shipped to the retipper for evaluation and even then they will not guarantee that the repair can be completed successfully; there is always a risk that you end up with a dead cartridge. 

My thought was simply that a) I'm not aware of anything inside the Art 9 that would make it any more difficult to repair than other cartridge (but would be curious to know if that is case and how it differs!) and b) if there's no internal damage and there is exposed cantilever to work with the repair in this case is relatively simple (at least for the skilled people who do this work LOL!). 

But yes, any retipper is going to need to physically inspect the cartridge before proceeding-that goes without saying. And it is their standard response.
Chakster: I can assure you that I don't need to learn anything about stylus profiles from you with respect to this. 

I ran Denon 103R's, both stock and modified (mainly with line contact styli) for about 7 years and about 6000 hours. So I'm relatively familiar with the cartridge and its merits, as well as the lifespan of the stock stylus and whether or not it will damage records at 300 hours or more. 

I've run the stock Denon conical for 800-1000 hours personally, as have many others, without any damage to my/their records. 

All conicals are not created equal and the Denon conicals on the 103 and 103R are up there with the best. 

I would agree with you that MR is a better profile both in terms of performance and longevity and have used LC or MR styli on my stereo cartridges for the past 7-8 years and for about 30 years before using the Denon 103R stock for a year. 

My current cartridge utilizes a Namiki MR stylus-hopefully that meets with your approval. And I have also used the Ogura PA profile (JCarr is on record as saying that with meticulous (clean) records and careful cueing 3000 hours should be possible with that stylus-those are major factors in terms of stylus longevity) for a very long time, as well as the Gyger. 


@chakster 

uberwaltz was indeed correct; in no way was I suggesting that anyone use line contact stylus for 6000 hours. I thought my post was pretty clear but perhaps not. 

In taking a look at my history with Denon 103R's it was probably about 5000 hours over all in a 5-6 year period. I ran the stock conical initially for about 800-900 hours and then ran 3 Soundsmith retips on two different rebodied 103R's, two of which were Peter's standard line contact on ruby cantilever and one which was Peter's OCL (similar to Ortofon Replicant) on ruby cantilever. I ran all 3 of those for about 1200-1400 hours each and they all sounded very good still when I retired them. My records were, prior to this, and still are, in very good condition. 

Very clean vinyl (seems to me from a recent discussion you are not a big fan of cleaning records, but maybe I am mistaken) and careful cueing are critical to stylus longevity. 

I know you are a huge fan and quite fond of quoting Jonathan Carr (at least when it supports your argument) so you might find this an interesting read: 

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=vinyl&n=265884&highlight=ogura+namiki+jcarr&r=