Who's done it besides me ?

I was on the phone, long and very important conversation. I was walking around my racks in the listening room while i was on the phone, and decided to clean some dust on my custom made teak wood plinth. A very expensive High-End cartridge was locked on my EPA-100 tonearm but stylus guard was removed. Cleaning the dust under tonearm wand cost me nearly $4k that day. Cantilever was snapped out and i could not even find it anywhere on the floor :( 

Even with very special discount from the distributor exchange of my broken MC to a brand new MC was way too much for me. it was a cartridge with sealed body and manufacturer in Japan never refurbish them, exchange to a new one is what they offering to their customers via distributors only. 

I realized how far we can go to buy things and to pay nearly 60% of retail price again to get new one instead of the broken one officially. 

It was a challenge for me to start looking for vintage High-End.

Prior to that i tried several vintage cartridges, i quickly realized that refurbished cartridges with aftermarket (third party) parts is the worst solution even for vintage cartridges, so i definitely wouldn't even try with that new ultra high-end MC, original cantilever was very special (but sadly fell off). 

Reading audiogon i realized how many audiophiles are happy with rare cartridges (MM, MI or MC) from the golden age of analog. I decided to try some of them. When i bought some rare ones i was so happy, it was better and cheaper than my ex ultra high-end LOMC. For the price i could pay just for 1 new cartridge i bought many vintage MM (and i was so impressed). Then i bought some vintage MC and now i know for sure where i can find my personal audio nirvana without breaking the bank. 

Because of that accident with my ultra high-end cartridge i discovered the whole world of exceptional vintage MM and MC from the 70's/80's (i prefer to buy NOS samples). 

Chakster to each his own. Only MM cartridges have removable styli. I know of no MM cartridge including the Ortofon 2M Black that can approach the performance of a modern MC cartridge, or a wood bodied Grado. I have owned all of them, Shure, Pickering, several Stantons, Empire, ADC, Goldring and I'm probably missing a few. Why? Better materials science with magnets and cantilevers. Better techniques of mounting styli and better styli. Much smaller armatures with less wire and lower resistance (much stronger magnets) leading to  much less moving mass. Much tighter tolerances. I used to see new cartridges with cantilevers and styli pointed in odd directions although all the Stantons I had were right on which is why I had several of them. All the modern cartridges I have gotten have been right on and these include Grado, Clearaudio, Koetsu, Lyra and Ortofon.  You can buy any of these cartridges knowing they will be aligned perfectly. The level of quality far exceeds that of anything I saw in the old days. I have no reason to look back. 

millercarbon went by the one you had listed the Koetsu black goldline  What is the reason that you painted the cartridge with total contact

@mijostyn, funny how experience are often not quite the same... 
Firstly, I did have more than one quality issue with e.g. Ortfon, such like skew cantilever, gaping cartridge body of two different and then top MCs of theirs. So much for that. 

Mostly reasonably good MMs tended to sound more musical, using SUT and straight MC into pre made not the hoped for improvement using MCs for me. 🤪 

Right now I'm using a P77 cart into MM input of Levison pre with 47k standard loading is more musical than e.g. my Cadenza Black with my Fidelity Research X1 medium, and there are some other vintage MMs at least challenging both my Cadenza and Quintet Black. 

With all the MCs I've owned I fiddled for ever with the loading all over the place from 50 through 47k ohm, when using MC 60dB input and NEVER heard that more musical liquid sound of my far older vintage MMs. 

In short, high, higher, highest resolution is NOT quite the answer if it creates a sound more like some middling CD sound. 

And so, as I said, experiences do differ, for better or for worse 😉
Michélle 

Justmetoo, look at the bright side. You are certainly saving a lot of money.
There are too many variables at play for me to be able to explain your experience. As an example, if your speakers are on the bright side many MC cartridges will sound edgy. The real expensive ones will not. I currently have an Ortofon Windfeld Ti and it's construction is meticulous. There are very few cartridges that can better it's sound and they are painfully expensive. As for cartridges at the bottom end of their line I can not say. The Windfeld is currently the least expensive cartridge I own. Of course, it is just as easy to break the cantilever off an expensive cartridge as a cheap one and even more tragic. The Talisman is actually the best value in the Clearaudio line and a very fine sounding cartridge once it is broken in. Clearaudio cartridges start out too bright. This goes away in 50 hours or so. 
Tomstruck, are you going to send it back to clear audio? If you are please tell us how much it cost to repair it!