Needle Breakage Conduction

[can-man]

I have seen this recently on the auction site....Needle Breakage conduction.

What are they saying and would you buy a used cartridge with this and should it work if you just replace with a new styles?

Thanks and sorry so unfamiliar with some terminology!

 

[Blue Shadow]

A cartridge with a broken cantilever might be repairable for a few hundred bucks depending in cantilever material and cut of the diamond by the retippers around the world. There are a few in the US, some in Europe, Australia and I'm sure in Asia.

But the cartridge would need to be one that someone is willing to spend the money on and it would need to be evaluated as to feasibility of a retip.

But spending a few hundred dollars on a cartridge with a broken cantilever that can be retipped might be worthwhile to get a few thousand dollar cartridge back to working condition.

 

[BillWojo]

I have no issue buying broken Denon DL-103 carts and having them rebuilt. Way cheaper than buying a stock DL-103 these days. I usually pay about 85 bucks for a cart with a broken cantilever. A basic rebuild from VAS Audio with a elliptical stylus is about 150 bucks, nicer stylus go up from there.
So for less than 250 bucks I can get a really nice cart.

BillWojo

 

[Nat]

Retipping can run the gamut from replacement of the cantilever/stylus and damper to simply jamming a sawed off portion of a new cantilever/stylus onto the stump of the broken one. Obviously the price should reflect the dramatic difference in work involved, but the sticking an new bit onto the old bit kludge can work surprisingly well (as long as you don't demand the same voicing as the original cartridge). The good news is that you can do it yourself, and it will just cost a donor stylus assembly, which you may have already. There are several threads on the subject over at Vinyl Engine, and as long as you don't use super glue, you can undo it and try again if you get the azimuth or alignment wrong.
I do not suggest doing this with valuable or rare cartridges, but there are lots of good bodies out there that languish unused because new styli are not available or are out of reach price wise for their owners.