I had a cart retipped by Soundsmith, and it was fantastic. I imagined it was better than the original, since I had the Optimized Contour stylus put on, which was a different profile than the original stylus.
But, I never got to hear my cart factory fresh on my Raven One. By the time I got the table, the cart was well into it's life. So it;s not a truly fair comparison.
The choice of stylus profile when retipping it important. The Standard vs.Optimized contour really makes a difference, as it a dance between information retrieval vs. groove (damage) noise. I know this first hand since I have the Strain Gauge with both types of styli and can change styli within a few seconds.
Records in good shape are great with the Optimized contour, while a number of used LP's I own (that were not played on good carts) fair better with the Standard Contour.
The other issue is one of time frame. I believe Soundsmith does retips as a labor of love, (all personally done by Peter) and hence there is a fairly long wait time. And the more people that find out about this amazing service, I suspect the longer the times will be. So clearly a person would have to have a spare cart while they wait for the retip.
I didn't have a spare and picked up one of their inexpensive SMMC-3's while waiting for my cart to return. I was pretty shocked how good a $300 cart sounded, but then again it was in a Raven One/Phantom, so I imagine anything would sound good on that.
But, I never got to hear my cart factory fresh on my Raven One. By the time I got the table, the cart was well into it's life. So it;s not a truly fair comparison.
The choice of stylus profile when retipping it important. The Standard vs.Optimized contour really makes a difference, as it a dance between information retrieval vs. groove (damage) noise. I know this first hand since I have the Strain Gauge with both types of styli and can change styli within a few seconds.
Records in good shape are great with the Optimized contour, while a number of used LP's I own (that were not played on good carts) fair better with the Standard Contour.
The other issue is one of time frame. I believe Soundsmith does retips as a labor of love, (all personally done by Peter) and hence there is a fairly long wait time. And the more people that find out about this amazing service, I suspect the longer the times will be. So clearly a person would have to have a spare cart while they wait for the retip.
I didn't have a spare and picked up one of their inexpensive SMMC-3's while waiting for my cart to return. I was pretty shocked how good a $300 cart sounded, but then again it was in a Raven One/Phantom, so I imagine anything would sound good on that.