Do you buy used carts/needles? Is it risky?

New Thread about Andy Kim, (needle clinic)

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/the-needle-clinic-andy-kim

Everybody

Did anyone have a new stylus successfully put in a Beryllium Cantilever     ?

IF so, by whom ______?

I've got 4 that will wear too much eventually.

Verification that the Coils are good.

Some sellers include photos of multimeters, showing the coils are good, and the meter indicates the resistance. 

It's nice if the two coils resistance is close to each other.

IF expensive, you could ask the seller to measure both coils resistance.

If a cartridge meets the following criteria, it’s unlikely to have anything wrong with it anytime soon, imo:

• Cantilever isn’t askew (sometimes a little can be tolerated - Cadenza Bronzes tend to have a bit because their cantilever is tricky)
• Doesn’t ride too low or deflect too much (suspension should be OK)
• Good left/right channel balance; strong center image (coils and lead connections should be OK)
• Plays clean through inner grooves (stylus isn’t shot)
• No apparent corrosion (from bad environment and/or sloppy user care) and not too much magnetic material / crud buildup on yoke / cantilever / coils
• Not sibilant. All VdH Colibris have some, to some degree - it's their design and no amount of alignment is fixing it. Can't say I've heard it in any other model yet. 

If seller has included enough stylus / cantilever pic detail that’s good - and sometimes you can spot whether that’s the correct factory stylus mount for that model. Once in a while I see ads where the stylus is clearly a 3rd party job, and this has not been disclosed. A Euro / van den Hul stylus mount  (or VAS, SS) looks WAY different from a factory Koetsu. Very easy to pick out.