Soundsmith's turnaround time?

I sent a B&O 8000 table in to be refurbished in November 2009. Original estimate was 6 - 8 weeks. Then I was notified very shortly thereafter it would be closer to 8 - 12 weeks. That was all fine with me. We're pushing on close to 20 weeks now and I haven't heard or seen nothing from Soundsmith. I never called, emailed, or otherwise inquired because I know Peter is busy, but still one has to wonder if they are that busy why do they continually take on more work than they can handle.

It's to the point where I have really lost all interest in the project and ordered a new table altogether which will most likely get here before the B&O. While I'm glad to hear that some have had better experiences, it appears that may be the exception rather than the rule.

I'm going to say that it's probably an issue of how much work is on the bench at any particular time. There's only so many hours in the day and so many of those that they can dedicate to rebuilding vs. building their new carts. In all, though, I can't think of a better place to send your work to be done.

I just spoke with Peter. Today is Sunday. He called from the office, where he is retipping carts. Which is very typical of him- he usually works on weekends and also late in the evening doing the retips and building the higher end Soundsmith carts, as there is no one else who can do this. That also goes a long way in explaining why his retips typically sound BETTER than the cartridge sounded out of the factory, and why I have never heard of anyone being unhappy with his work.

Out here in rural Pennsylvania, you can often find a sign tacked onto the wall in an auto garage or workshop, which reads the following-

YOU CAN HAVE IT DONE FAST
YOU CAN HAVE IT DONE WELL
YOU CAN HAVE IT DONE CHEAP

BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE ALL THREE

Ledermann is quite literally a gift to the audiophile community. He is the only retipper and cartridge rebuilder in the US that I know of, and he makes some of the worlds absolute finest cartridges, while charging a fraction of what other companies command. If you are finding the wait too long, simply pick up the phone and ask to speak to Peter personally. He has a very big operation, contrary to what you may think, with lots of people working for him, but he will ALWAYS take the time to talk with you if you ask for that.

Disclaimer- My company (OMA) is a Soundsmith dealer.

I received a phone call about this thread. I will respond to the many issues raised here, and post it here soon.

I want to gather my thoughts first, and respond in a thoughtful considered manner. Maybe to address the main thread here, I need to double my prices for retipping and cartridge rebuilding so I can be in line with the pricing of the rest of the retippers in the world, and hire a full time person to communicate better. With 150 - 200 Emails I get each day, many looking for free advice, it is a big job. Some of those complain as well, when I don't answer in 48 hours with free advice.

Emails are not perfect. Some Emails get lost in our mailwasher program. If we don't respond, we didn't get your Email. Try using a phone to reach us.

Yes, when I get a difficult cartridge, I put it aside to try to make a day's pay, and get to it late at night. The extra effort I make is to save someone's cartridge and their hard earned money, even if it needs extra work at no extra charge. Those DO get delayed. Maybe I do need to stop doing that and just give up on them, and their cartridge.

Again, I will respond fully soon here on this thread.

Peter Ledermann/Soundsmith

Hello,
Peter is not an assembly line robot, he is a human being that gets sick from time to time, partly because he works way too much. And he does it out of his strong feeling of responsibility for the people he employs. His obligation to customers is equally strong, but sometimes one can answer only so many question via phone or email within a 24hour day, sometimes there is no time left after 12hours+ of physically reducing the backlog.
Those who think he should just hire another person to give all the written and spoken advice need to get in touch with reality. Customers want to talk to or hear from THE MAN HIMSELF. Few if any (potential) customers would take it from the mouth of what they see being just a helper or secretary, no matter how thourough the briefing(or actual experience/knowledge).
Forums like this created the popularity(I dare not call it hype): - remember, that before Peter's work was widely known, you'd be sending your cart to Benz, the Garrot Brothers or Mr. VdH. And waited just as long or longer(but paid quite a bit more). Not to mention the cost for a rebuild by, say, Koetsu.
Why take more orders that one seems to be able to handle? Because you never know what the next month looks like in this business...

Good night,

Frank Schröder