Re: [Harp-L] crystal repairs

["Joe Spiers" <joemopar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

A few years ago I had an MC151 die on me, and I hadn't even dropped 
it. Most people would have had a brief funeral for it, but of course I 
did an autopsy. Inside, I found a dark-colored wafer-like element (the 
crystal?) had fallen off the narrow two-sided ledge that it's supposed 
to precariously reside on, secured by a little metal springy clip that 
also serves as an electrical connection (internally). I could 
immediately see how one bounce off the floor would knock it off. It 
was a finicky task, but I put everything back like it was obviously 
supposed to be and reassembled the cartridge. It's still my strongest 
and best sounding "crystal" (although my current favorite is a black 
label CR that Sonny Jr sent me). I was stoked about repairing it, and 
even offered to fix them for others on this list and and the Weber amp 
discussion board. One seemingly especially-mean person there warned 
everyone there that I was a blatant liar....putting it nicely...... 
and no one on this list even wanted to risk the tremendous blow to 
their budget that it would cost to mail me their dead element 
(what....maybe a buck?) to do a free autopsy on theirs (and either fix 
it for a small fee-- or perform the burial). I was hoping to examine 
more subjects, and do something nice for other harmonica players, but 
was ignored. But I digress.

Later MC151's used MC127 housings with a sticker labeling them as 
MC151. My "crystal" didn't have any appearance of a white salt and may 
not have actually been a crystal. I don't know.... I called it that 
because that was what it was supposed to be, and I didn't know any 
better. There was a rumour I heard later from Stephen S. that he'd 
heard somewhere that Astatic just stuck the stickers on them- they 
were actually just relabled ceramics. If you have a dead one, it's 
worth looking into, no? Mine certainly sounds GREAT. And no, the offer 
isn't still good.

JS