No right channel in new cartridge

@tochsii I bought a new Sumiko Blackbird from my dealer this past summer. A HO one, if that matters. They mounted it on a new tt I had also purchased. I had it for 2 months then one night the right channel went out. It was playing, I was home alone in the kitchen when it went out. The next day I bought the turntable and cartridge back to my dealer. They troubleshot it but couldn’t fix it. It was a short in a thread of wire on one of the connections. They sent it back to Sumiko and told me they would let me know if it was covered in the warranty. It was and they sent me a new one. That one was DOA. It couldn’t be balanced properly. It would always skate across the album. There was no deflection or reflection on the needle. The amount of weight that would need to be applied would break it. I’m waiting for the new one to come in this week. Good luck.

When this occurred with my Blackbird cartridge my thought when at the dealer was that if it wasn’t covered by the warranty I was going to cut my losses. At the time I was told that if Sumiko wouldn’t cover it that what they’ve seen in the past is that Sumiko would “repair” it (replace it) for 3 or $400. For me that would put that cartridge at $1400-1500 with no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again in a couple months. I was willing to cut my loss and get a different cartridge from another manufacturer. I don’t know if it is a quality control problem, though I think it it is, or a design problem with the naked or nude design but the cartridge is at best a $1000 cartridge new. Not worth being $1400+ in the hole for 2 months in.