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Teach me about cartridge 'retipping'

Thought I would throw this out there for comment by long time vinyl aficionados...

We all have cartridges we love, some are pricey treasures... but they wear out eventually even with much care and diligence in use.

There are still some good folks with excellent reputations doing retip services of various makes - Peter at SS, Andy Kim in WA, Steve Leung in NJ etc etc... not to mention some of the manufacturers of course, who still do them. It would seem to me these old craftsmen may or may not be passing along these valuable skills to younger apprentices.

I have bought a couple Grace F9 retips from Peter Ledermann - they work wonderfully. No longer having a fresh factory F9L I will never know whether they sound different.  But they sound great.

Curious to hear comments about how these retips are done, and whether they can reliably reproduce the original sound signature of the cartridge. I wonder, for instance, about how the cantilever is removed and reinstalled, relative to the suspension of the original cartridge, etc etc.  Is the suspension replaced?  What is a suspension comprised of, for example, in a typical higher end MC cart like a Dynavector a Lyra a VDH...

Of course, as time passes, the original cartridges age and I can imagine suspensions in them eventually get compromised as well...
jjss49
jjss49's avatar
jjss49 OP
6,926 posts
 
@needlestein

To criticize a Koetsu owner who doesn’t have the money, or maybe who does have the money but who doesn’t believe their cartridge needs to be completely stripped out and replaced as demonstrating “strange behavior,” is just snobbery.


there has been an ongoing pandemic of snobbery on this forum for the last 20-30 years... :)

many longtime posters are infected... i myself not immune... see threads of cables, amplifiers, speakers, not to mention things analog

to quote the orange man, it is what it is
cleeds
6,601 posts
 
I’ve never understood the reasons for objecting so strongly to a cartridge re-tip.

My experience is limited. I had an old Monster Cable Sigma Genesis 2000 LOMC that was my favorite cartridge of all time. It is also the only cartridge in all my years as an audiophile that I damaged - my fuzzy sweater sleeve caught the stylus and ripped it clear off. That was before I realized that a cartridge could be retipped, but long after MC got out of the cartridge biz. (I think the MC cartridges were made for them by Zyx.)

For some reason, I put the cartridge away in a drawer and by the time I found it again years later I’d learned about Soundsmith’s retipping service. Figuring I had little to lose, I shipped it off to Peter & Co.

Memory being what it is, it’s difficult to say whether it’s identical to the original. No matter - it sounds fantastic and is easily worth the few hundred it cost me to have it refurbished.

When it wears out, Ill send it to be retipped again.
jjss49's avatar
jjss49 OP
6,926 posts
 
Memory being what it is, it's difficult to say whether it's identical to the original. No matter - it sounds fantastic and is easily worth the few hundred it cost me to have it refurbished.

...and that's the point, ain't it?  

excuse the unintended pun... and all the egomania and snobbery aside

solypsa's avatar
solypsa
462 posts
 
@needlestein mentions something really important about building great carts. Grading. Parts have tolerances. If you are building something great , and more than one, a system of grading parts must be implemented.  It is my opinion that ALL the great audio gear is heavily influenced by excellent building practice and excellent builders. It takes more than fancy parts to be at the top levels...
Oh and thanks to all the good and dedicated retippers out there!
needlestein
37 posts
 
My experience is limited. I had an old Monster Cable Sigma Genesis 2000 LOMC that was my favorite cartridge of all time. 
This is another great reason.  Some cartridge are just special to some people and a new one won’t do it.  Had someone recently send me one of these with a missing diamond.  They sent me a message about how they heard bad things about retippers, how it won’t sound the same, how the quality is poor, how it’s hit and miss, but he just loved the Sigma Genesis 2000 and he didn’t have any other alternative.  So, reluctantly, but hopefully, he sent it to me.  I put a new nude elliptical onto the end of the original boron cantilever that was only a little bit broken at the very tip—retaining 98% of its original length.  As soon as he got it, he sent me a glowing email about how happy he was to have the Genesis 2000 playing again and he said it sounded the exact same as before.  His skepticism all those years, he felt, was unfounded and he’d only wished he’d retipped it sooner.  I have a million stories like that.
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