Re-tipped phono cartridges

Retipping a cartridge is a silly idea. There is much more stuff inside the cartridge that wears out such as the suspension and coil connection wires. The manufacturer will remanufacture the cartridge giving it an entirely new armature/cantilever/ stylus assembly. Oh, what happens to the coil wires is that years of vibration work hardens the metal and eventually they just snap. Always have your valuable cartridges remanufactured by the original company. Always keep an eye on your stylus with a microscope. Do not wait until you hear something. That’s way too late.

Seems to me retipping a cartridge is like changing the oil on your car without changing the filter.  Break it out the wallet & buy a new one. 

Hi Chakster,
What camera were you using when you took those high resolution pictures? I want to invest one to examine some of my cartridges.
Thanks,
Calvin

That is easy to say when you have a $45 Shure. $16,000 Goldfinger? Not so easy. 

Yes @nandric i see this feature in the manual for your Klyne, but the recommendations given for the original cartridges. I believe when someone change the original cantilever (especially boron pipe) to something else (including boron rod) the moving mass will be different, also the stylus tip is not the same, so everything will be different comparing to the original. As the result: the response is different according to this article. Technics research was made back in the 70's. 

Maybe we can compensate somehow by tuning equipment, or maybe our ears can't detect the difference, but this is not what i'm trying to say here.

 In theory changing cantilever and tip we're getting a different cartridge with different moving mass and difference response at high register. I'm sure this is only one aspect of a much more complicated thing that i don't understand as i am not a cartridge designer.

What i often read here is the "retipped is better than the original", but then i realize slowly that people never compared a pefrect original to retipped/refurbished sampe in A/B test. They are sending a cartridge for retip to get in back in 5 month often. Probably their cartridge degraded in sound earlier, i have no idea how they can compare retipped sample to original if they don't have two samples of the same cartridge on hands. Referring to a faulty memories is not the same, this is not A\B test, such comparison is irrelevant in most cases, except maybe a well trained audiophiles/professionals.   

I am comparing cartridges on 4 tonearms in one system and i know how faulty our memories really is, even after 10 minutes.