Ana Mighty Sound offers a cartridge overhaul service

Cartridges are meant to be played on different records. Some of them being cleaner than others. And maybe, after a while you might feel that your cartridge does not sound as good as it was or you might even be afraid of having damaged your cartridge after having drop the needle a bit too hard ? We can check your cartridge, clean it and offer a diagnostic of the general state of your cartridge. With time cartridges get dirty. The most visible part of this process is on the body of the cartridge but also on the cantilever and diamond tip. Even though most of you clean on a regular basis your diamond tip : it might not be enough and we have professional solutions that we apply under electronic microscope and binoculars in order to allow the perfect cleaning and at the same time describe the wear of your diamond tip (and give you eventual advices on the use of your anti-skating force). Cleaning your diamond tip is only the tip of the iceberg. Tiny spec of dusts, metallic particules might have also migrated inside your cartridge on the pole parts and magnets. These particles might also have started to colonize the moving parts of your cartridge (coil former and coils, damper) and thus restrain the freedom of movements of your coil former and coils. This has a serious effect on the sound performances of your cartridge. With our internal cleaning procedure we will ensure that your cartridge is perfectly cleaned. We will also check the status of your damper and eventually use some additives to rejuvenate it if necessary. This process will ensure that the compliance of your cartridge is as close as possible to original. If your coil former protector is dirty, we will clean it and fix it back. If it is damaged or worn out, we will replace it with our special Japanese Washi paper coil former protector. Our washi paper coil former protector is based on linen an his lacquered on the outside in order to allow "breathability to the moving parts of cartridges and at the same time prevent dust particles to enter the sensitive parts of your cartridge. Last step is to measure the different specifications of your cartridge and to deliver you an overhaul diagnostic. This service is included within a two year period for any brand new cartridges sold by our webshop.

A sample of our work on an Air-Tight PC-1

We received this cartridge that was a second hand cartridge bought by one of our customers. It was a cartridge described as being scarcely used. Following picture will show the exact state of the cartridge.

First part is to inspect the diamond tip which in this case is moderately dirty.

After initial cleaning there is still a very adhesive spec of dust glued on the tip of the diamond tip

We than inspect the diamond under high magnification and different polarization filters to observe eventual wear signs on the diamond tip and if the fixation of the diamond tip is still perfect.

If the cartridge has a diamond tip in good condition we remove the hood of the cartridge which in this case is loaded with dirt in order to perform the internal cleaning

The insides of the cartridge show a cartridge with dirt and greasy substances on the body of the cartridge. You can already notice a large metallic particle stucked on the left side of the coil former.

On this picture you will see more clearly this metallic particle. These kinds of particles can have some devastating effects on the coils of your cartridges as they can short-circuit/cut those coils. They will also affect the movement of the coil former and thus alter the sound of your cartridge.

We will first remove this particle and than start to clean the internal parts of the cartridge :

Cleaning process of the coil former/damper is finished with a rejuvenation process of the damper. We will also adjust the cartridge by making some fine tuning of its internal parts. This is also the time when we start to make some measures in order to access the status of the cartridge during/after cleaning

We than apply a brand new coil protector made from Japanese Wahsi paper