What VERY expensive MC cartridges have you owned, and are they worth it?

They can be. I guess there's a market for "statement" cartridges with gemstone bodies and/or exotic woods. I don't have experience with them (well, the Koetsu I had years ago was Rosewood) so I'm not entirely clear on how the sound is changed with the use of different body materials, though I've read the sound characteristics do change.

 

This is it. If carts never wore it would totally reframe perceived value of expensive ones.

Figuring effective 'cost per hour' it can get sobering. That's without breakages. Then there's the temptation to go too long before a re-tip. And you see references to some carts taking 200 hours or whatever to come on song. That's a short and expensive window of optimal performance!

Great if you've got the money though.

 

The fanciest cartridge I've ever owned has been an old Ortofon SPU from the early 1960's. I was given it in 1975, it's been retipped 3 times in all those years, I got gifted the SUT with it. I use it on special occasions for my finest records. Can't afford to daily drive it. I had it retipped the first time in 1975, by Ortofon. I also have to be doubly careful with it, it's a delicate item compared to what I normally use.

My other MC and it's used more often, is a Denon DL-103. It's rugged enough that I am less afraid to use it more often, and cheaper to retip. It is still not a daily driver, but used pretty regularly in the rotation.

 

Just bought an Accuphase AC2 with a broken cantilever off Ebay. It will receive a new boron cantilever with MR stylus and a rebuilt suspension.

I have high expectations for it. If it works out, it should be a pretty good cartridge for the $550-$600 I will have into it.

 

Who will be doing the work?

 

I haven't made a firm decision yet but, because the cartridge is older and will definitely need suspension work I'm leaning toward Andy at the Needleclinic. Will have to contact him once I receive it but he's done work for me in the past (as have others) and I've been happy with him.

 

Thanks for the info. (As much as I love and have been happy with Peter's work, as I understand it, he won't do suspension work. So, I need a resource when that is required. Sounds like this is a good possibility.)

 

That is my experience as well: that Soundsmith prefers not to do much suspension work or other slightly more exotic or involved repairs. Andy is open to a bit more and my experience has been positive with him. With older cartridges though, or stuff needing actual repair work outside of basic retipping, I doubt anyone bats 1.000. So there's an element of "you pay your money-you take your chances".

 

The real problem in deciding whether or not a cart is worth the $$$$$$ is what else is in the chain? Like what kind of phono preamp do you have? What kind of TT and arm do you have? What kind of interconnects?

It is really difficult to isolate the cart as so much more is involved.

My most expensive cart is a Transfiguration Axis S - and is it worth it? Yes and no. I think it's a very nice cart that really shines when it plays a well recorded, mixed and mastered record but many records don't meet that criteria and the Axis S shows how bad some records sound as well as how good.

 

This is why I'm letting my subscription to Stereophile lapse, I can't relate to most of their articles.

 

I know what you mean. When I receive an issue, I thumb through it looking at the price of the unit before I bother reading about it. It usually goes like this, $15K no, $25K no, $100K no, etc. then I'm through with it. I still read the letters but they're usually only one page instead of the ten or so pages they used to be. Can't have letters instead of mega-buck advertising. Compared to what it used to be Stereophile just sucks.

 

T c.f. c waa

However good what you get back is, it will sound different than original.

It is my personal opinion that this point is overstated in our hobby. Cartridge manufacturers source their diamonds and cantilevers from a small handful of suppliers. There are only a few companies that cut and mount diamonds. Cantilevers areoften on the same diameter solid boron rods, and their differences are minimal at best. Now the big cartridge companies have their variations of a line contact geometry, but except for diamond mass they are different interpretations on a similar cut. How much of a practical difference do they make? Or is it a variation in a shading, which is what I happen to think. Although I will say the tip mass of a Namiki Microridge and an Ortofon Replicant is noticeable, and I would take the Namiki any day. Now this is true for the majority of the cartridges out there, but the ones that are at the tippy top of the ladder do have custom designed elaborate cantilevers, and those are the exception to the rule.

There is an interview by Johnathan Carr that says the major differences in cartridge design and voicing comes from the damping material and techniques used in a specific cartridge. I will dig around and see if I can find that interview, but its bed time now. Gone are the days of the exotic cantilever materials such as hollow boron tube, or gemstone tube, beryllium, or magnesium and aluminum alloys. Now there is diamond coated boron, or solid diamond, which also happen to be available from OEM suppliers such as Namiki.

Now last year I had two Koetsu Urushi. One needed a retip as the diamond fell off the cantilever, so I sent it to Andy. I bought a second hand stock Urushi with low hours because the price was favorable. I also wanted to use it as a control to see if what I got back from Andy was equal in quality. What I found is that I could not tell one bit of difference between the two cartridges. They sounded EXACTLY the same. I am of the opinion that if you choose your retipper carefully, use quality parts, you are going to get a product back that for all practical purposes is on the same footing as stock. That is provided the suspension and damping materials are functioning properly. And that is something worth verifying. Also a catastrophic de-cantilevering of a cartridge can cause damage that reduces sound quality, so the circumstances of how a cartridges comes into needing a retip is worth exploring and evaluating.

Once again, this is just the opinion of a simple country pig. We like good food, warm sun, and soft hay. If you want a second opinion go talk to the cows for they are wise. Do not talk to the chickens, for fowl are known liars and they cheat at cards.

Regards
Mister Pig

 

Overstated? Maybe.

But my simple experience with two retipped carts differs from yours. They came back sounding different from original. I could immediately tell the difference, which I attributed to the different materials used over original stock.

Not that I was disappointed -- the retips sound good and were a huge bargain over a factory rebuild. Still, they are not the same.

YMMV.

 

That cost per hour is the big reason why a MC cartridge for me is a special occasion thing. I play a lot of records in a week, let alone a day or a year. I go through styli because of this faster than most users. The cartridge with affordable styli which performs as well as possible, and suited to my tonearm and my record playback needs, is what I use daily. My main turntable and arm do a mixture of work and play (and work is archival and broadcast production).

 

Which two cartridges did you send in, and what third party did the retip?

Admittedly we are talking about small sample sizes for both of us and extrapolating to say what others could experience.

Cheers
Mister Pig

 

Quite. I can see where swappable headshells (or a 2nd arm) would be so useful for just that reason - general listening vs savouring moment carts.

 

I favor analytical cartridges, in fact some of the cartridges I liked the best many would not like. I’ve owned some pricey one’s over the years
Lyra Atlas
Lyra Etna
Lyra Titan I
Koetsu Onyx
And many others that I can’t remember
My favorite remains the Titan I and AT OC9 (although thats 25 years ago so my brain may be rusty)

 

They do have diamonds at the tip, after all.

 

I am sorry to say that after many years spending a fortune on expensive carts i am now a happy man using a cheapo and listening to more LPs than ever before. Each to their own. xx

 

Blake
I just put my Accuphase AC-2 back in service after a 30 years in a box (came from Brooks Berdan back then ) and was floored in how it sounded ! It is a ZYX makers design.
It is maybe not the most dynamic MC,s but everything else is incredible, imaging, width, breath and space volume envelope is superb!

I was not expecting this level of performance. Hot weather makes it sound a little hard so keep your environment somewhat cooler than normal FWIW
You will like it ..
Used with a Cotter transformer

 

Which one? Would be interesting to know.

 

I think having a cartridge that expensive (north of 1k) would have me playing less records so as not to wear out the stylus.

 

I had a Lyra Helikon stereo and Lyra Helikon mono that I sent in for new styluses to SoundSmith. Just to reiterate -- I think SoundSmith provides fantastic service and I do not fault the work in any way, shape or form. In fact, some months back I got back both from a second retip. So SS has extended the life of those two hugely. Repeat customer and happy camper I'd have to say.

I haven't yet mounted either, but I can say from my memory of the first retip the sound was different. I attributed it to the different materials -- ruby cantilever with the optimized nude contact line stylus. It appears SS now has a boron cantilever option -- that's the way I'd have gone if that had been available.

It's hard for me to articulate now how the sound changed, but it had notably changed. Not necessarily for the better or the worse, but for lack of a better descriptor the 'flavor' had changed. I anticipated that going in.

Many years ago I had an old Koetsu Rosewood retipped by ... I think by ExpertStylus in the UK. I couldn't say if anything changed with that one since I bought the cart with the stylus missing. I enjoyed what I got back from them though. Just don't think Koetsu is very compatible with the kinds of other equipment I was using -- kind of went too far into the warm and wooly side of things.

I do want to emphasise, however, that I recommend SoundSmith without reservation. You do have to be patient -- it takes awhile to get the work done. But I know of no better value-for-money option in refurbishing an expensive cart and getting some extra life out of it when you don't have the cash for a factory rebuild. I was also pleased with what ExpertStylus did.

You have to keep in mind, however, that once you go down that path some manufacturers will no longer accept those "altered" carts for factory rebuilds.

 

Thanks for that info. I just received the cartridge in the mail tonight and with the exception of the broken cantilever (very small section broken off almost right at the stylus mount position), the cartridge looks virtually brand new and as if it had very little use.

I'm thinking prior to your post that there is a good possibility it may not need any suspension work and your post would seem to reinforce that idea/possibility.

I had done my homework and was aware of the Zyx connection when I purchased.
It should also be a great match with my phono stage with its very low internal impedance.

 

"Worth it" is of course going to depend on the individual, but if you actually do love records (as I do), you might find as I have that there's more 'magic' in what the cartridge can do than almost any other component (assuming your tonearm/table and the rest can bring it all out).

Sound quality aside, something that surprised me was how inner groove distortion disappeared on so many records I had where I thought the IGD was built in. It wasn't.

I found this 2006 review from Michael Fremer summarises fairly well what you should get with an expensive cartridge:

Koetsu Urushi MC phono cartridge

"Cartridges are often compared to loudspeakers because both are transducers—they turn one form of energy into another. And while speakers and cartridges are the least accurate links in the audio chain, loudspeaker systems are far more complex and must interact with both the amplifier and the wildly variable room acoustic. Cartridges certainly have some tricky interfaces—record grooves, tonearms, phono-stage loads—but today's high-tech cartridge motors are far more accurate and predictable transducers than those used in the past.

All of the high-priced cartridges I've auditioned and reviewed over the past four or five years share certain characteristics that distinguish them from budget models. They all overcome the "edge" and grain structures lesser cartridges tend to impose on the music, but without softening or obscuring transient information and inner detail. (But if you're used to "edgy" performance, these sophisticated cartridges may sound "soft" at first.) In fact, as you'd expect and demand for your money, they resolve transients better and reveal more low-level detail, both spatially and musically, while avoiding the bright/hard or soft/warm tendencies of lesser designs. Overall distortion is much lower as well.

All premium cartridges, to differing degrees, have fewer frequency-response aberrations. They reproduce the frequency extremes with the same authority as they do the midband, and come closer to the ideal "flat" wideband response. But, like loudspeakers, all cartridges have some defining frequency-based character. Some of these characters are accidental; some, I suspect, are purposely "tuned in."

The expensive cartridges I've auditioned are built more carefully than massmarket models, both in terms of the quality and perfection of the parts used and in the way they're put together. This helps them achieve a better geometric relationship with the record groove. The result is superior separation, which creates wider, better-defined, and more accurate soundstages, more focused images, and better front-to-back image specificity.

When you spend $3000 or more on a phono cartridge, you should hear an immediate sense of ease, refinement, and liquidity, especially in the midband; a feeling of authority and control over the music; a complete freedom from "electronica" and artificiality. The better cartridges manage to untangle previously impenetrable webs of complex musical information without spotlighting or highlighting anything revealed. You sense that though a hundred events might be occurring simultaneously on the soundstage, you can hear each one individually. You can tune in and out of musical conversations much the way you can between people in a crowded room. And none of the images within the soundstage should appear to come anywhere near the confines of the drivers or cabinets.

Large-scale dynamic events like orchestral crescendos should strike your ears with a fast, violent impulse—uncompressed and completely controlled. And they should recede without a trace, leaving just the echoes ricocheting off the hall walls, clearly defined in a much different space. Low-level dynamic events—frequently occurring simultaneously with the large ones—should be portrayed with equal impulse clarity and detail, but in proper proportion.

Air, space, rich harmonic overtones, explosive dynamics, transparency, woody wood, metallic metal, fleshy flesh, a thousand colors, and a rich, seemingly limitless sonic bouquet—all, impossibly, painted by a stupid little diamond fleck motoring along a black vinyl highway."

Again, whether or not any of the above is "worth it" is an individual choice.

...

Here's an audiophile reviewer (I think I came across this essay more than 10 years ago) who says most are grossly overpriced (with my underlines):

REFERENCE COMPONENTS-PHONO CARTRIDGES

"In stark contrast to turntables and tonearms, there have been huge improvements in the performance of cartridges over the last 15 years, so all of the Reference designations are for current models, or upgrades of older models.

That being admitted...

Many contemporary cartridges are ridiculously and shamefully overpriced. This is partially caused by consumers naively believing that you have to pay an outrageous price for high quality and, consequently, don’t take a cartridge seriously if it is priced in a reasonable manner.

What about "the audio press"?

Don’t expect "the 'independent' audio press" to criticize the importers' rip-off prices. They (the 'reviewers') almost always get their phono cartridges for free (Yes, even the most expensive models), or maybe an "extended loan" or, at worst, receive a "sweetheart deal"*. Take a long, thoughtful guess at how "grateful" the 'reviewers' can be in return for this "generosity". And never forget:

Who do you think is subsidizing all of this "generosity"!

Look at the retail prices of the Denon, Dynavector and Shelter models below and then attempt to justify the (retail) prices of the others. Fortunately, you can find really superb pickups for not too much money if you read the information below, do a little work and are patient.

* Some importers have refused to "play the game". Their cartridges are usually either ignored by the press or don't do very well if they are 'reviewed'.

IMPORTANT PERSPECTIVES
A phono cartridge is much more important to the final sonics of a system than either an equivalently well-designed turntable or tonearm. Only the speakers and the listening room interactions have a greater overall sonic effect. This fact still doesn't justify either distributors grossly overcharging when they know that they can get away with it or consumers foolishly paying those rip-off prices.

...

As I previously said, I do think there's more "magic" in the cartridge than in many or most of the other components in a sound system focused on records.