@melm Mr. Carr sells cartridges and retips. He sells HIS cartridges and retips. SoundSmith is a competitor. They sell cartridges and retips of their cartridges and other people’s cartridges, including those of Carr.
So what?
Jonathan Carr is the most knowledgeable people on this forum and his honest comments on audiogon does not rise up his sales. He gave us the explnanation as a cartridge designer, sorry if you don’t get it.
Peter Ledermann, the proprietor of SoundSmith, will happily give all of the considerations of which he’s aware about his services. Positive and negative. He often appears in these types of forums and provides what he knows. He does that WITHOUT disparaging the work and product and business ethics of competitors. He will answer emails; he will get on the phone with customers. His work on a variety of cartridges has been given great praise on forums like this one.
Peter Ledermann is one of the best retippers and a designer of SoundSmith cartridges, in every single
video he clearly
explain how inferior is every MC design compared to MI design. Think about it as a nice marketing too. Sure, he will ansrew emails, this is a good business, we need a person like him to get broken cartridges back to life (especially the vintage ones with no support from the manufacturer) or to upgrade low cost cartridge with better parts (to change alluminum cantilever to ruby or boron, to change spherical tip to linecontact etc).
But when it comes to a high-end cartridges like the ART-9 retipped/refurbished by him with third party parts, it does not mean to be better than the original cartridges designed by some other genious (we have many great cartridge designers).
Still the unanswered question: What EXACTLY does Audio Technica offer by way of after-sales service to those purchasing from an authorized dealer? Is LP Gear an authorized dealer? If a US resident buys from a Japanese authorized dealer can he expect after-sales service? Does Audio Technica offer retips? If so, what is the cost?
I am not from USA. If you buy from Japanese dealer you have to deal with Japanese dealer (i did, no problem).
If you buy from US dealer you ask them to help you about any issue, including "repair" or "upgrade programm " , you name it (i did it, no problem, great support). Some manufacturers actually provides factory retip or refurbish by the original cartridge designer.
@gibsonian
AT doesn’t retip but if you send in your old cart they sell you same model at a reduced price or you can upgrade as well. Either way you save bucks, I think it is around 50 or 60% of new cost.
Thanks for your comment, so they are exactly like ZYX in Japan. The only difference is that the price for ZYX can be $5000, but the price for AT ART9 is $1000 and when you send them your broken or worn cartridge you pay 40% less (about $600) - this is amazing deal if it’s true. Because you will get the original brand new cartridge for $600 and this is the Audio-Technica sound, not a SoundSmith or whatever sound. It means your next ART-9 is much cheaper than from grey market dealers. This is absolutely amazing, what is the reason to pay
$350-650 to SoundSmith if you can get brand new factory sealed ART-9 for $600 ? Correct me if i’m wrong.
