Hi guys,

I have a couple of questions about SP cartridges, I haven't found the answer anywhere else:

My Beogram 3000 came with an SP10 cartridge. It's old and tired and presumably also broken as when the record come near the end the cantilever collapse and the head scrub the record.
But as long as it can stand up, it sounds: Basses are deep and sounds is very clear.
Middle medium could sometimes be a little muddy and high mediums also sometimes a little distorted though.
After close inspection, it seems that the diamond has vanished (what a surprise!) leaving just what seems to be a little metallic spike.
I have bought a second cartridge (SP12) for a good price. To my ears, it sound with the very same defects; It just don't collapse and stay as it should all along the record.

So my questions are:

- I'm right to think that the metallic spike is where the diamond was once built around or is there no spike at all and what I see are remains of the old diamond? Anyway what makes the cartridge still sound "acceptably"? I mean, if there's actually a metallic point, is it enough to make the record sound?

- For the stylus that collapse, can it be broken and still sound, or it is not broken but the pressure is too wrongly adjusted because if it where broke I will not ear any sound at all?

- Which leads me to the last topic. If I set the pressure as recommended (1 - 1.2) the stylus seems to be very crushed in both case even leading to the head touching the record in the case of the SP10. My guess is that I should apply as little pressure as possible even if below recommendations (Right now I'm at 0,5 and it lowers distortion a little bit and seems to work OK). I know people around here use normal settings and it works for them. But for me it never did (was it on the BG3000 or BG 1203).

Thanks to anyone with an insight about this.