Time to fess up. Who's busted a Cart?

JackD201 · Dec 20, 2013

I busted a whole lot of MM styli in my teens. Never thought much of it since they could easily be replaced. In the 80s there were lots of cheap clones too if you didn't really care about SQ. LOL. I did bust the very first MC I bought. Bone head accident. Boy did that hurt. Haven't broken any since.

KNOCK ON WOOD!!!!!!!

AMP · Dec 20, 2013

OK, I'll fess up....

Many years ago I was given the opportunity to purchase a Clearaudio Master Reference that was being taken in on trade. In order to do so I needed to sell my old table (Clearaudio Master Solution). Took some photos, but the table was dusty and didn't look good. I proceeded to dust the table off with a microfiber cloth and was extremely careful. Fortunately, the design of the table was such that there was a lot of room around the tonearm and cartridge. Satisfied that I had gotten all of the nooks and crannies I dropped the towel (so that it could be removed from a different angle) and removed my hand from under the arm.... and BAM!

Not sure how I did it and honestly cannot remember the seconds surrounding the event, but I hit the cartridge hard enough with my hand that the stylus actually cut my knuckle.

Koetsu Jade ...... broken.

The system was in our living room and my wife was in there reading when this happened. Apparently I screamed some obscenities and turned around slowly. She later said that she'd never seen such a combination of anger, embarrassment, and fear in my expression before (or since).

The sad thing was that I was paying close attention while dusting, but had a very brief lapse at the very end. Oh well, expensive lesson learned. Don't dust the turntable!!

It was interesting to see the outpouring of support from my dealer, his customers in the store at the time, and the Koetsu distributor. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Don't beat yourself up. We've all done it..." and then everyone proceeded to tell their story of breaking a cartridge.

JackD201 · Dec 20, 2013

You'll love how stupid my accident was Andrew. I had been reading that to do anti-skate on the JMW I had then, one was to twist the cable. Well, Einstein here decided to check it out but forgot to lock the arm down. On first twist the arm moved and I panicked and jerked. In other words, I had no idea what the heck happened after that! All I remember was being frozen watching the arm go bouncing all over the place the cantilever less cart finally resting on the label. Uggghhhh.

garylkoh · Dec 20, 2013

First one I busted was when I moved to Seattle. It's cold here, and I was setting up while wearing a sweater. Snagged the cantilever and pulled it right off. In Asia, we so this with bare arms, so I didn't even think of it.

Sauerball · Dec 20, 2013

MF says he destroyed a just retipped Titan Lyra in the January Stereophile trying to mount it. No wonder he didn't like the Simplicity arm. Made me feel better about the Clearaudio Concept MC I dropped before I had even used it.

rockitman · Dec 20, 2013

I never have fortunately...

andromedaaudio · Dec 20, 2013

All I can say is you don't want to drop a needle next to the record on a sme , the moving dampening compound on the platter takes care of the tip from there on

Is this a confession ??

carolkoh · Dec 20, 2013

I was 8 or so... busted Dad's cartridge. Result was a little box record player just for the kids - me and Gary - to play our little 78 RPMs. I remember it was green and had its own speaker.

mep · Dec 20, 2013

rockitman said:
I never have fortunately...

Me neither. Not even any "the maid did it dusting" stories.

microstrip · Dec 20, 2013

mep said:
Me neither. Not even any "the maid did it dusting" stories.

Surely you never had an Oracle - yes, she did it! I should have suspected why the the front of the base was always dustless in the accessible zone at the front ...

mep · Dec 20, 2013

Fransisco-You are correct, I have never owned an Oracle table.

Ronm1 · Dec 20, 2013

Back in late 60's messed up the cantilever of a V15 on the Elac/Miracord 50h. Never screwed up another one knock on wood thru many other carts/TT's.

astrotoy · Dec 20, 2013

I had a bunch of audiophile friends over and we were spinning some vinyl. Someone noticed that the arm looked a little funny. I took a close look and the stylus of my Lyra Helikon was hanging on loosely to the body, still playing music! Anyway it was getting to end of its useful life (said hopefully) and that moved me to a Skala. Now on my second Skala, just wore out the first.

Here is another one, fortunately not caused by me. Maybe 20 years ago, a local dealer called me, knowing that I had expressed interest (desire?) for a high end TT. At that time I had a SOTA Star with a vacuum and an ET2 arm. What he had was a really pristine Versa Dynamics TT (a Model 2.0) that one of his customers had. 25 years ago it cost $8000! The customer had committed suicide. Fortunately WBF wasn't around at that time or he might have done it sooner,

The dealer was helping his widow dispose of his very high end equipment. It was a very good deal and I bought it. He said do you want a high end cartridge also, and he pulls out a box with a Van den Hul Grasshopper Gold III cartridge which had been used with the Versa. As I remember, it was $3000 back then. I had never seen a cartridge that expensive and opened the box. I didn't see any stylus. I handed the box back to the dealer and he looked around and saw the stylus stuck to the bottom of the box! Fortunately, he sent it back to the Netherlands and A J himself repaired the cartridge and a few weeks later I got it at a bargain price also.

Larry

Mosin · Dec 20, 2013

If a cartridge has anything remotely resembling an exotic cantilever, the chances of me breaking it are pretty high.

audioarcher · Dec 20, 2013

Yup. I smoked my Ortofon A90 3 months after receiving it. Hit it with my elbow trying get a piece of debris off a record. Dumb mistake.

Johnny Vinyl · Dec 21, 2013

Back in the late 70's when I got my first "real" turntable, I also bought some liquid stylus cleaner. Well, I didn't know at the time that you were only supposed to clean the actual stylus tip with it and not the cantilever as well. After some time the damn thing fell apart. Fortunately I've not had issues mounting or removing one.

flez007 · Dec 21, 2013

I ruined a ruby cantilever from my (now back) Blue Angel Mantis while cleaning the plinth of an Avid turntable I traded-in, the deal went down $1,500 but my self-esteem went to h**l!

cjfrbw · Dec 21, 2013

I used to be cavalier about them for years, since I worked with my hands with small things in my profession. Then I broke three in a row doing dumass things. I still have the cartridges sitting in a drawer waiting for retip.

Since then, I approach them with trepidation and great care. I use scotch tape to make flexible guards when mounting, and have an acute awareness of the air space around the cantilever when approaching the turntable. Doesn't mean the maid can't still get to it, but since I have become paranoid, I haven't broken any more.

Blam! · Dec 25, 2013

Three carts busted in the last five years: Soundsmith Strain Gauge, Audio Technica AT 180 ML OCC, Scheu Analog MC Scheu S. All messed up by our beloved cat. She caught the Strain Gauge on last year's New Year's Eve...ouch.

I keep my fingers crossed, this and next year won't happen the same.

es347 · Dec 26, 2013

Back in the early 80s my wife decided to dust my Rega Planer 3, Grace 707 MkII arm and F9E cart. You guessed it...the F9E stylus bit the dust...ouch

Time to fess up. Who's busted a Cart?

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