What do we offer around cartridge servicing ?

Here are three scenarii possible that gives you a good opportunity to contact us :

• Your cartridge is not working as it should be ? Maybe it is just some dirt which as accumulated on your cartridge's diamond tip ? maybe it is something else?
• Your cartridge is just fine but well you just want it to be checked and cleaned?
• You have broken your cartridge, or somebody has broken your cartridge and you would like to know what happened and if it is repairable?

We can help you in all these cases. Even though it is not so obviously stated : a cartridge needs regular servicinglike you do with your car or your watch. As such we offer a free checking and service, within a period of two years, of any cartridges we sell to our customers. You can of course clean all by yourself the diamond tip or eventually the cantilever of your cartridge with a smooth brush, a dust removing pad but sometimes it is not enough and we do offer some dedicated solutions to clean up your stylus and much more. For most cartridges users : the diamond tip and the cantilever is the most important part of the cartridge to be kept in proper working order. We, at Ana Mighty Sound, do not believe that : there is much more than that. Here are a few points that are worthy to consider and on which we offer dedicated servicing solutions :

• If particles of dust stick on your diamond tip and cantilever they also migrate inside your cartridge even if there is a cantilever protector. Spec of dust have the ability to stick everywhere inside a cartridge and especially on the damper, the coil former and coils themselves. These spec of dusts, when they accumulate, do alter the way the cartridge mechanically behave. We can remove these and thus restore close to original condition your cartridge.
• A moving coil cartridge is basically a very powerful magnet (among other things) and magnets attracts metal and especially specs of metal. We do find inside the cartridges we service specs of metal which stick on the front pole piece, the magnet but also and more dangerously on the coils and coil former themselves. These can have a dramatic effect on your cartridge integrity. We can also remove these and thus prevent any internal damage to your cartridge as well as restore original magneitic hysterisis flux conditions (even though these have most of the time minimal affect on it).
• Damper is also a key part from your cartridge. It holds the coil former in optimal position to ensure that the cantilever is well centered and that the diamond tip has correct azimuth. Each time you play a record the damper is stressed. Have you ever dropped slightly brutally your cartridge on the surface of your record ? You might have displaced the damper. We can of course reset it back to it's original place as well as ensure that your diamond tip as a correct azimuth.
• Your cantilever seems stiffer than before or has a strange angle ? It could be different things (like a piano wire issue) but it could also be the damper of your cartridge. We can offer different possibilities of repair including rejuvenation of your damper, change of the damper and/or resetting of the piano wire setting in order to get your cartridge back to original settings.
• Your coil former protector is in bad shape or even torn away ? We can replace it with our special washi paper protector which allows your cartridge to "breath" better. Our washi paper is lacquered on the outside to prevent the dust and metallic particles to reach the inside part of your cartridge. At the same time it is a "breathable membrane" as it allows air flow and thus reduces parasitical resonances to be focused on the generator itself.

But everything is not so dramatic even though we do perform other servicing options like :

• Diamond tip wear evaluation. How much life is there left in your cartridge ? Do you use too much antiskating force ? Is there any abnormal wear due to any particular other reasons ? We can give you some indications on how to extend your cartridge life by adjusting your settings
• Thorough cleaning of the output pins in order to remove any oxydation from them and thus allow perfect electrical contact.
• Full external clean up.

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