The "Broken Blue Point Special Club"

Oh I got you all beat by a big margin, A Big Margin, beat by big margin! I have trashed three times a Benz Reference, once after a day of owning it, and twice since then! You would think I would move to digital. No F###### Way!!!!!! I have since had it retipped by van den hul and it is great. So I figure I have about 4000.00 tied up in this cartridge. OUCH! Oh by the way the biggest pain in the butt in this world is Garth at Musical Surroundings. Is this guy a pain or what! I went to van den hul because Garth is a pain!!!

Busted my BPS exactly the same way installing it on my Oracle Delphi a few years back. Tried to install a Grado on my Oracle Alexandria, busted the tonearm wires, cost me $400 to get the arm re-wired. I now use the Grado Reference series on my 'tables, the wooden body is pre-threaded and makes it easy for even a complete klutz like me to install pickups without costing myself thousands of dollars and lots of down time waiting. Jeff

I thought I was the only dummy that trashed cartridges due to my hamfisted dexterity! After killing the Blue Point Special many years ago, I happened upon a NOS Shure Ultra 500. You Know what? The Shure even sounded better(to me, in my system) So, I figure that since I will forever suffer to exist within the price constraints of products like the BPS, and the Shure is better, AND has a replacable stylus, I'll just stick with the Shure and stop searching for the elusive "best" sub $500. cartridge!

Well, I haven't broken my BPS on my Project Perspective turntable and sometimes I don't know why. This cartridge on this turntable hangs out like an "ON" switch waiting to be flicked on. But this cartridge is well worth the risk. I received my turntable from HCM Audio with the cartridge installed. Harry at HCM devised a cool little protective shell to keep on while I got the turntable set up. And Harry is one heck of a nice guy. Well worth doing business with. Hearing these other poor souls speak of breaking these priceless jewels, it breaks my heart. And I will tell you, for the money, you would have to pay considerably more to reach a notch above the BPS. it just isn't worth it!Maybe someday, if I decide to upgrade to a $4,000 or $5,000 turntable, then maybe I will change my mind. But I still only have 25 albums that I consider worth listening to until I get my lunch money saved up again. With the way the new albums sound today, it is not even worth listening to 10 and 20 year old albums. Maybe it was the garage spiders? Maybe it was working around jet aircraft?

I have had similar experiences in the past with the Stylus for the Shure V15VxMR