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Akiva off for a rebuild...

If I was ripping then escorted, if I want a new canti and rewind and not a cut n shut then goldring.
 
Mike Reed said:
Generally, I believe, the lower output cart's have fewer windings and usually a lower internal impedance. As major refurbishment should leave the cart. as close to original condition as poss., I can't see where that affects the output.
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Thanks for taking the time to respond constructively Mike, unlike some.

I should just briefly add that I'm very glad Goldring offer this service and I'm still very interested myself, although must admit no longer for an Arkiv or Akiva. Asaka/Troika/Klyde are strong possibilities though.

Naturally, I'm concerned by Michael's report of (comparatively) poor musicality and low output from his rebuilt Akiva. My assumption was based upon the fact that the coil was rewired. Is it fair to assume that Goldring are not able to create as many windings as that fella in Japan? I recall comments on the old Linn forum about his work and how initial Kandid production was limited by how many carts he could build. Can't search the Linn forum but found this:

"The work is carried out by a single man, the nearly mystical Yoshinori Mishima. Mishima-san adjusts and voices every single cartridge Lyra builds. If he gets a cold, production halts for a week to ten days. That’s a price Lyra is happy to pay for the results it attains."
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/special-report-the-japanese-audio-industry/?page=3
 
I’m sorry you felt my previous comment unconstructive buy you posts seem to based on a number of assumptions that I just don’t believe to be substantiated. Now I’m sure that the more expensive Lyra cartridge are hand tuned by one man, but every cartridge that Goldring rebuild is done by one man - in fact the same man each time as there is only one man in this department. In addition, he has been doing it for many, many years and has rewound hundreds (probably thousands) of coils. When I had Troika reworked by Goldring it came back with precisely the same output etc. Pretty much all the higher end cartridge manufacturers make use of a guru that no other can better......

Now cast back many years..... I have twice had people claim that during the repair of their television the tube (as it was then) had been replaced with a smaller one - not only would this have been physically impossible but, in neither case, had the tube been found faulty and it had not been replaced - however, even application of a tape measure did not fully convince them.....
 
YNWOAN said:
Now I’m sure that the more expensive Lyra cartridges are hand tuned by one man, but every cartridge that Goldring rebuild is done by one man - in fact the same man each time as there is only one man in this department.
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Indeed; you can add Transfiguration to that list and I'm sure there are other 'one man bands' employed on expensive m/coils; part of the reason they cost so much, I guess.
 
The whole thing about ‘one guru manipulating mystic cartridge making forces’ has become something of a high-end MC cliché over the years and also the idea that ‘insert name of cartridge here’ cannot be worked on by any other than the specific guru attached to said company. Now, of course I have read of cartridges bodged by rebuild companies, but I’ve also heard of ‘genuine manufacture’ rebuilds that have come back sounding bodged. Personally I have had a number of cartridges retipped over the years and all were very well done. In reality, most (there are some exceptions) MC cartridges use very similar tolerances and parts, but mixed in differing ratios to create different sounds. As for who has worked on what, well if you talk to pretty much any rebuilder they will tell you they see a lot of Koetsu carts - but then there are a lot of Koetsu carts out there and they have been high value, high profile designs for a very long time.
 
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Country that’s never made a great MM cart, let alone an exotic moving coil, suddenly develops the ability to rebuild high-end cartridges - good one. As for sending a Koetsu to Goldring - you first.
 
abbydog said:
Country that’s never made a great MM cart, let alone an exotic moving coil, suddenly develops the ability to rebuild high-end cartridges - good one. As for sending a Koetsu to Goldring - you first.
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So who makes the Audio Note IQ range of MM cartridges for them to their particular specifications? Also there have been some good MC cartridges like the Electro and others all made by Goldring.
So I had my Koetsu Onyx Platinum MC cartridge rebuilt by Goldring (I put my money where my mouth is) and it sounded marvelous and disagree with half truths or tales being mythified and regurgitated on the wonderful world wide web.

I do have some decent cartridges like top Audio Note IO's & Audio Note S9 SUT, Lyra's, Clearaudio's in my collection and various tonearms like Bruer's etc so do have a little bit of experience and if the re-built cartridges were not up to my expectations I would not be keeping them. I just do not believe that you can make statements that are not backed up by empirical evidence.
 
Not quite correct, QED are under the same umbrella group etc but Goldring are the people who made the series 1000 MM cartridges e.g. Goldring 1042 etc and also for Roksan Corus range too. As far as I am aware QED in itself do not make cartridges. I checked online and Deco Audio website for the Audio Note confirms this as do 2 other website reviews when you type in Audio Note IQ-3.
 
Having heard Dom's high end mc cart there's more than one guy in the UK capable of making/reworking top spec mc carts. The reason Japan has so many is due to the presence of namki. There's only two or three places worldwide that make canto assemblies
 
The only true high tech cartridge companies are Ortofon and Audio Technica - they don’t need to rely on “Gurus” as they have consistently invested in both MM and MC manufacturing technology over the last 30 to 40 years. They kept vinyl going in the dark days of the ‘90s of “perfect sound forever”
 
I had assumed Abbydog was speaking in Latin to confirm his point about there being no UK cartridge manufacturing expertise had been proven, as in "Quod Erat Demostrandum". Mind you although apart from cables us oldies do remember a QED Dac and a smallish integrated but never a cartridge.
 
10%er, I'm sure the guys are Lyra, Benz and many other brands will be happy to hear that.
 
Craig B said:
IIANM, the only Goldring sourced Linn cartridge is the Adikt. Apparently, Goldring were contracted to do the official Linn MC rebuilds when Linn were offering that service, so they will have had lots of experience.
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Goldring currently manufactures or has manufactured three different Linn cartridges: Adikt, Klyde, and the Krystal. They do perform full rebuilds on older Linn moving coils and I can vouch for them having gone thru four Arkiv rebuilds for me and a friend.

Back in 1997 I visited Linn and there was a guy in a small room rebuilding cartridges. The Linn factory tour guide (Pete Nowicki) told me that it was an external contractor that performed the work two times a week. Shortly after I sent my wrecked Linn Karma for a rebuild and was really pleased with the result.
 
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