What about diamond cantilever/stylus combo

@trytone Think about mass, rigidity and hardness 

The reason why some of the best cantilevers are extremely stiff and not made out of glue. They are stiff and very light like vintage Boron Pipe later replaced with Boron Rod. It's pretty easy to use a drop of glue instead of some very expensive laser etching techniques in mounting diamonds on the cantilevers made of boron, ruby or diamond. 

A diamond mounted with a drop of glue can fell off easily, especially when people using liquid stylus cleaning. 

The best cartridges designed in the golden age of vinyl are all have super rigid cantilevers with diamonds mounted without or with minimum (hardly visible) amount of glue, depends on the cantilever type. 

Re-tippers can't do that, they can only drop some glue on the cantilever (if it's Boron, Beryllium, Sapphire, Diamond etc, except the Aluminum). 

While some serious cartridge manufacturers back in the day applied laser micro sudgery to attach the diamong on such cantilevers throguht the micro hole made in the cantilever for superb rigidity of this construction and lower possible moving mass.  

I finally went for a Blue Lace w/ Diamond cantilever. I have experience with boron CoralStone, Onyx, Jade, RSP. Also with alnico vs. Platinum magnets on the Onyx. I am very impressed so far. Right out of the box it beats the burned-in (in its prime) boron CoralStone in detail, dynamics, presence, soundstaging. Musical flow is even better. It doesn’t make the Koetsu sound more analytical; it just gives you better speed, clarity, and detail.

I’ve found sonic differences between stones to be very, very subtle - not worth stressing over. The difference from RSP to Onyx Platinum is a bit more than that - yes, maybe stress over this, but only a little bit. The difference between alnico vs. platinum magnets is significantly more than these, but not all differences fall in the favor of one type vs. the other. The diamond cantilever difference is significant in magnitude, much like the magnet difference - except that in this case it all seems all in favor of the diamond. So - just extrapolating - I’d expect an RSP or Onyx/Jade with diamond cantilever upgrade to handily beat the performance of the similarly priced CoralStone boron and Blue Lace boron. @terry9 has been singing the praises of his RSP DC and now I have to say - well, rightfully so. Unfortunately the much higher rebuild cost for a DC (almost twice the cost) brings this "value" proposition a little more down to earth. But a Koetsu should last a very long time with proper care.

The Koetsu diamond stylus/cantilever is clearly two pieces. The cantilever is thicker but slightly shorter than the boron rods, so these are best used on tables with a vacuum hold down or ring clamping to flatten warps (you bought this much cartridge, so...). It is very hard to see well enough to align!! But Koetsu does a great job precisely aligning the stylus to the squared body. The cantilever has a slightly smokey, green-tinged coloration, unlike the stylus. If there is any glue used in the DC assembly, it is so minimal that it’s impossible to see. Even their boron assemblies use less glue than other tippers - they use a metal mounting plate to aid in this, and the end result usually looks exceptionally clean compared to massive blobs of glue seen elsewhere.

Just anecdotally and from what I’ve observed, glue is the big weak point in a stylus/boron assembly. It is the most likely failure point. So in my mind, an over dependence on glue bonds can’t have good implications for longevity AND sound quality.

Dear @trytone  @mulveling  : The main difference between cartridges from the same manufacturer or between manufacturers is the design of the CARTRIDGE MOTOR and after that comes the cantilever build material and length and shape of that cantilever.

Same cartridge motor cartridges but with different cantilever will performs different and in your Koetsus and as a cantilever build material Boron is only second to Diamond and that's one reason to performs better in its quality performance.

Glue is not exactly an " enemy " on a cartridge design because the cartridge as a system along the LP grooves modulations and its relations ship with the TT and tonearm can help to damps a little vibrations/resonances developed down there.

Cartridge at that top levels use a very especial type of glue and at minimum to not affect really the dynamic mass down there.

Btw @mulveling  you can't know ( because no one cartridge manufacturer says. ) if the diamond sample is exactly the same cartridge motor design and I mean it: a clone.

The cantilever issue is not only about build material but as I said: its length, shape and even its " raw " characteristics on each manufacturer. Along all those parameters and other than the stylus shape that makes a differences is the cartridge suspension type where the cantilever is and how attached.

Things are more complicated that what we can think, nothing is simple with a cartridge.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Perhaps this is an issue more about customer perception than glue. Do you really believe Soundsmith customers are ignorant of what they are buying? For a bit less than 500$, their clients are able to enjoy an experience that to many may be indistinguishable from what they remember before the service. One assumes that this might be hard to measure(what with variability in samples of what is usually a hand built product) and perhaps even harder to distinguish by listening(since a few months have usually passed between the end of the life of the original and the installation of the retipped cart). The service recently allowed me to buy an Air Tight cartridge(the 15000$ Model) on an Audiogon auction for close to 2000$ and have it retipped. This allows me some(hopefully close) version of the airtight for a third of the best price that my industry connection could allow. I do not believe Soundsmith make any claims to install the exact cantilever and diamond but rather to offer some version that owners may enjoy(or that will allow a worn or damaged cartridge to be sold for an attractive price to those that may not be able to afford a new or barely used high dollar item). Whether they are so popular due to how the retips perform or the professionalism of the repair work is up for debate. Anyone that may have dealt with them(and I have been a customer 4 times over last few years) receives an instruction sheet that explicitly warns against using a liquid cleaner that might damage the glue(they prefer a soft brush for dust and something  akin to Blu-Tak to remove the film that builds up. I am still new to this pursuit and respect those who believe they can hear the difference between what they remember and a retip but comments about the service being some how unworthy due to use of glue or not producing an identical performer seem unfounded. As always am eager to be shown the error of my ways. LS (PS The next Austin Record Convention starts about May 18th, will be there selling mostly classical recordings as I have been for over 30 years, hope to meet some of you there).