Kelly, the cartridge I got treated was done by a guy in Chicago ( I usually use Purist Audio ) who specializes in very small delicate pieces. The cartridge was a Benz Ruby 2, supplied by Musical Surroundings as an experiment. I do the photography for them, and we both entered into this to learn. The Benz was treated within it's original box, with the wood body left on. The idea was to reduce the shock to the rubber and glued parts and protect the delicate stylus. When I got it back and began to break it in, it took almost twice as long to get where it sounded right. There was an obvious change, and no doubt about the improvement. Most noticeable was in the transient response, the entire range of the cartridge from top to bottom and the speed with which it plumed the music was obvious. There was a completely relaxed and liquid character to the instruments, without any change to their position or to the image. The uppermost frequencies were greatly extended and increased in detail, but without the brightness that you might associate with this type of high frequency information. The only "downside" was in set up. It required even more obsessive attention to tracking and especially VTA. Missing the mark with all the additional information was brutal.
