Cartridge new or used ?

@uberwaltz said:

You definitely have some deep rooted trust issues. And your comments about doctored feedback is highly amusing.
But to each their own, I have no problem with anybody who prefers to go the route you advocate but please do not harbour malice to those who DO decide to buy used and save a fortune potentially.

Why is my bad fortune amusing to you? THAT response is defensive and apparently struck a sore point with you. Perhaps you’ve been on the other end of a deal where you have felt unfairly accused of selling damaged or defective merchandise.

As a buyer, have zero tolerance for dishonest sellers who misrepresent their goods, especially on Internet commerce sites like fleabay. I speak from personal experiences, three in recent times where I’ve had to get fleabay and/ or PayPal involved for a refund.

Please tell me that you are not defending sellers who deliberately do not disclose damaged and defective items. If you had the same experiences that I’ve had, you would act so defensively and might even show some compassion.

Lastly, please explain to me how I’m “harbouring malice” to people who decide to buy used things.

Sleepwalker.
I have absolutely zero idea how you took my reply and construed what you did out of it. Additionally I am having a hard time even understanding your follow up points?
If I offended you in some way I did not intend to and apologise for your distress.

To cut to the chase all I was saying if you do not trust sellers of used carts that is fine and no problem to me at all. I only assume from your distrust that you have unfortunately been burned by some unscrupulous seller for which I sympathise .
However again do not place ALL sellers in the same category and if others are having good luck with used carts then it is what it is and you should not denounce the practice of buying/selling used carts in general.
Leaves more for the rest of us anyways!

And that should be enough said on the subject.

Remember that part about common sense? People who are prone to impulse buys and NOT doing thorough research should probably NOT buy used carts.
Just IMHO.

@sleepwalker65

 

Why would you go vintage when brand-new, I’m-abused Audio-Technica Micro-Line cartridges are available everywhere at reasonable prices? (Thanks Chakster) I prefer a known commodity, and it’s worked out superbly with my VM540ML cartridges.

Do you know who was the designer of the Audio-Technica top of the line MM cartridges in the 80s?  I wish to know, because some of the best cartridge designers are no longer in business. Sadly we can not buy a cartridge from Ikeda, Nori, Takeda.. anymore, but their cartridges are hand build and voiced/tuned by the masters themselves. For this reason we can only buy vintage, hoping to find a NOS or perfect (nearly unused) working sample. 

Another reason is unobtained material and methods used in the 80s, but not available today which makes those old models unique compared to new models. 

It does not mean that the new cartridges are bad, but if we're looking for something unique then we have rare cartridges from the golden age on analogue. It's all about curiosity after all. 

I guess one exception could be where the stylus is user replaceable and the price is appropriate for such a contingency. Even then one takes one’s chances which is why I won’t do it again. I bought a used Pickering XSV3000 that came without a stylus. Bought the replacement stylus which was fine, but the cartridge has a noticeable channel imbalance which makes it unusable. So, between cartridge and new stylus, that was $200 down the drain. That put the stopper to future used-cartridge purchases.