The balance of the Universe is restored.
The stylus on my turntable was damaged by small children in the distant past. This caused it to skate on records, and generally not work very well.
I have had it refurbished at a cost of £400; I was offered a boron cantilever upgrade for £600, but I declined that offer!
Refurbishing a moving coil cartridge is craftmanship at it's finest, and I doubt there are many people now who could to this.
Kudos to David Griffin at Goldring:
https://www.goldring.co.uk/goldring-cartridge-repair.
It sounds like I remember it.
This copy of Dark Side is brand new, re-mastered and pressed on heavyweight vinyl; a Christmas present to celebrate the renewal of proper vinyl playback here at Feanor Towers.
Dropping the stylus onto the run-in groove and listening to it burst into life put a proper little tingle through me 🙂
The short video is on bookface, sorry!
https://www.facebook.com/100003815150503/videos/pcb.2484940674976413/471635574368739Time to unleash the 600W of the 6-channel power amps!
Refurbished cartridge ready to install:
Asaka refurb by
Ron Lowe, on Flickr
Aligning the cartridge using a protractor:
Asaka refurb by
Ron Lowe, on Flickr
Checking the tracking force with milligram scales. I was surprised how accurate the markings on the tonearm dial are. It's set to 1.6g, and is pretty much bang on.
Asaka refurb by
Ron Lowe, on Flickr