who knows ZYX retipping or refurbish ?

gilles130, I got the original as present but defective. The suspension has hardend. So I posted the cart to my friend Axel who added new    (boron) cantilever and his best (Shibata) stylus. However he was willing to cut the cantilever cover and drill a hole in the body to reach  the involved parts. The problem by ZYX is the ''glued together'' body   so the only way to get ''inside''  is to cut or/and drill the body. Axel,     alas, retired while I have no idea if other retiper would be willing to     do such ''drastic job''. BTW this explains chakster statement that        ZYX does '(cart) exchange but not ''refurbishing''. The sound of my     retiped or refurbished ZYX is excelent in contradistinction to its
looks (grin).  

Thanks for your answer.

The ''old economist'' wrote about production and distribution of            wealth among (social) classes. This distribution in our case is
between manufacturer,  importers and dealers. If I am well     informed each get about 30% .So if chakster is right that ZYX
get  60% of the  retail value by exchange of the old for the new     cart  why should they   then mess with refurbishing ? 

Yes, 60% or even more, but only if you send them back broken cartridge with valid serial number. I actually sent my broken Premium 4D, but then i gave up on ZYX. I believe each distributor can do more or less to help their customers. I'm pretty sure it's very difficult to sell such expensive cartridges.  

You could do much worse than having Peter Lederman at Soundsmith repair your cartridge. His work is first rate.

I’ve had customers have work done on a ZYX Universe (a re-tip), several Benz LPs, and a Dynavector XV1-s and in all cases, the work was equal to that of the original.

Will the cartridge be identical to its original state? Well if it doesn’t end up as an identical twin to the original, the worst-case is that it will be a fraternal one.

... Thom @ Galibier Design