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

jfrech

VIP/Donor
Sep 3, 2012
2,152
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1,160
Austin
There should be a warning on cartridges and dusting your system. Kinda like what we see on cigarettes in the USA ;-).

So a few years I was dusting my system...wearing a baseball cap...decided I'd be very careful dusting around the tonearm...leaned in to see better...the bill of the cap perfectly clipping the cantilever right off my Lyra Skala...DOH !! Only one I've ever busted...knocking on wood hard right now...
 

Sunnyboy1956

Member Sponsor
Feb 22, 2014
240
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New Delhi, India
A few years back my basement listening room was being painted. My wife had covered the TT and arm with a cloth. Someone swished off the cloth cover and that was the end of my Transfiguration Orpheus. Learned my lesson . I now have acrylic box covers for both my TTs.
 
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Suteetat

New Member
Sep 3, 2013
42
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0
Bangkok
Koetsu Coralstone. Nuff said, still hurt even a year after. Luckily Koetsu retip did not take too long but the cost was ouch!
 

asindc

Well-Known Member
Sep 27, 2012
187
20
923
Busted a Clearaudio Concerto trying to put the cheap plastic guard on it. Incidentally, I have a brand new Concerto for sale in the Trading Post here.
 

puroagave

Member Sponsor
Sep 29, 2011
1,345
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970
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

Did you buy the Versa? great 'tables they were.

the closest ive come to breaking a cart was damaging the suspension...I guess its the same thing:rolleyes:
 

BobM

Well-Known Member
Feb 5, 2014
169
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Long Island, NY
Here's a slightly different take on busting a cartridge.

Was at a buddies house to help him check the alignment on his old Grado Sonata. We had things tweaked out pretty good so he put on a song and left the room. The song ended and I got up off his microfiber couch, walked over and touched the arm lift. SPARK! Blue light from the stylus to the record. Fried the left channel.

What made it worse was it wasn't my cartridge. He returned to to Grado and they gave hiim a brand new Sonata II for a very small layout. I offered to pay for all or part of it, but he was so happy with the improvement in sound that he actually thanked me for getting him to upgrade the original very old cartridge.
 

Brf

Well-Known Member
Sep 21, 2012
39
21
913
Remember that odd album that had the opening on the top instead of the side like 99% of most albums.

I was getting ready to play an album and could not find the record opening. I rotated the record jacket in an attempt to locate the opening only to witness the album rolling out of the jacket and guillotining my 6 month old Koetsu cartridge.

This was followed by some dry wall repair.
 

flez007

Member Sponsor
Aug 31, 2010
2,915
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435
Mexico City
I have just busted my Blue Angel Mantis for the second time, unfortunately I can't remember when since the last time I wanted to use it the cantilever was damaged - back to South Africa!
 

theophile

Well-Known Member
I busted mine mating with my tonearm.
 

DonH50

Member Sponsor & WBF Technical Expert
Jun 22, 2010
3,947
306
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Monument, CO
^^^ I really hope that statement is due to the language barrier... :D

I used to DJ some, and helped at many shows and demos, so have busted a fair number through the years. One of my bosses takes the cake for me; at a show he was talking with someone and not paying enough attention as he attempted to lift the cartridge and return it to its rest. He dropped it, knocking it skating across the record with a horrific chattering squeal resounding throughout the show area, and his desperate grab resulted in breaking the tonearm off the table. He stared in disbelief as people walked away so as to not burst out laughing... He thought it was funny. Eventually.
 

TBone

New Member
Nov 15, 2012
1,237
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Arggg ... this is one tough thread to read ... may all those innocent carts RIP.

I've done my share, one reason I'll never wear long sleeved shirts setting up ...
 

RedSectorA

New Member
Feb 19, 2014
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A few years ago I had home for tryout a Clearaudio Master Solution. Dealer installed a new Ortofon Kontrapunkt C on the arm.

I was changing record when my significant other sitting on the sofa ask me a question, I swing over and hit the tonearm which sent the cartridge flying to the spindle resulting in a broken cantilever.

Well I did buy the table, tonearm and two Kontrapunkt C. At least the vendor was gracious enough to sell me one at cost which helped relieve the pain a bit.
 

oldears

New Member
Jun 8, 2014
7
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When my Atlas was less than 6 months old, I was hooked on taking photos with the Dinoscope to try and get the SRA exactly right. All the jiggling, with the stylus embedded in a CD, moving the microscope into position on several different occasions, must have done the suspension in. Distorted terribly in both channels. A very....very costly rebuild. I have subsequently taken to treating it with kid gloves!! So it is not only dusting that poses a risk.
 

jadis

Well-Known Member
Apr 28, 2010
12,361
5,471
2,810
Manila, Philippines
Just saw this thread now.

Fortunately, I haven't. Not even in my Sansui all in one automatic turntable days. :D Those plasticky plug in carts were my first touch at cartridge 'installation'. :D

The first time a witnessed a cart being banged up left me with like a little 'scar of war'. A neighbor of mine who just stepped into high end analog then bought a Monster Cable Genesis MC. His table was an Oracle Delphi III with an ET2 arm. He asked me to recommend a tech man to install it, and I set him up with the best I knew at that time, who was also a dealer of the ET2. After installing the cart, and trying to slide the arm for good measure, he accidentally dropped the arm (with the cart) into the platter, with the cuing lever down. He kinda knew what havoc had happened and upon trying to play it, there was no sound as the stylus had disappeared. Just watching the episode was painful enough, specially seeing my friend's facial gesture after the accident, and I told myself I will be ever specially careful when it's time to touch my carts.
 

theophile

Well-Known Member
'tain't nothing worse than a busted cart.

 

jadis

Well-Known Member
Apr 28, 2010
12,361
5,471
2,810
Manila, Philippines

Orb

New Member
Sep 8, 2010
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0
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.

What given one of these audiophile kid record players?
il_570xN.499395247_sme7.jpg

:D

Cheers
Orb
 

Bobvin

VIP/Donor
Jun 7, 2014
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Portland
www.purewatersystems.com
Scared the hell out of myself the other night. Was finally setting up my AMG v12 turntable and adjusting tracking force on my Benz LPS. Everything going along OK, finally got the force set at 1.897 grams, aiming for 1.9. So as a final measure I drop the stylus into one of those little bubbles of elastomer to remove dust. When I go to check the stylus I don't see it? Even with a 10x magnifying glass I can't tell if I'm maybe just seeing a narrow end of the cantilever. My eyes are far worse than they used to be, so I'm starting to panic somewhere along the way I have somehow snapped the diamond off the cantilever. My mind is now racing--can't be possible, surely the cantilever would snap first; never heard of losing just the diamond; do I have a stronger magnifying glass? Had my wife take a look, she can't see anything either.

So I try looking on the net for an image. Lots of reasonable size photos but none that look precisely like what I see. I decide to play a record, starting with something I don't care if it gets trashed dragging a tipless cantilever across the grooves.

All is well, everything sounds as it should. But I gave myself a hell of a scare, as I know retipping a BENZ can be a loooong wait. Today will be shopping for a USB microscope. I'd totally forgotten just how damn small the diamond can be. Seeing photos on the web of folks setting SRA, its easy to forget just how magnified the images are, so I guess I was expecting to see something more.
 

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