We have a vinyl set-up in our mastering facility for listening to test pressings and to allow clients to bring their projects and hear the result of our work on a decent system (NA Dais, OL Illustrious, Dynavector DRT XV-1s, Soulution phono - modest by some standards, but a great sounding combination).
A couple of months ago one of the dogs got into the room and with one whack of her tail took the stylus and cantilever clean off the cartridge. We rang all of the DV dealers and were given prices for repair/old for new replacement from £1500 to £3000. Not in the business budget.
Then I found the Expert Stylus people, had a couple of great long techie chats with the main man, sent my DRT to him for assessment, and he suggested repair it with a new cantilever and paratrace stylus. So I agreed.
I'd been expecting disappointment as even re-tipping can ruin a sound, but instead I was delighted by the improvement the paratrace made to tracking and overall sound - no loss of detail, no loss of harmonic richness or frequency response overall - and all for less than £400.
I didn't think this should go unmentioned ....
A couple of months ago one of the dogs got into the room and with one whack of her tail took the stylus and cantilever clean off the cartridge. We rang all of the DV dealers and were given prices for repair/old for new replacement from £1500 to £3000. Not in the business budget.
Then I found the Expert Stylus people, had a couple of great long techie chats with the main man, sent my DRT to him for assessment, and he suggested repair it with a new cantilever and paratrace stylus. So I agreed.
I'd been expecting disappointment as even re-tipping can ruin a sound, but instead I was delighted by the improvement the paratrace made to tracking and overall sound - no loss of detail, no loss of harmonic richness or frequency response overall - and all for less than £400.
I didn't think this should go unmentioned ....