SoundSmith cartridges how good?

@hshifi
For every negative experience there can and usually are dozens of good ones you never hear about.  I bought a new turntable that had a predetermined preinstalled Soundsmith Paua mkII cart by the dealer and within the first few days I bent the tricky but ingenious stylus guard.  
So I cold called SS, and Mr. Ledermann answered and minutes after the phone call I had emails from Peter Green and Amy Reyes with my tracking number for a replacement.  Can’t get any better than that, right ? 

Love these first hand Soundsmith reviews. But every time I get my mind made up it must be the SG then I read about the magical Hyperion midrange and, arrgh! Good thing I'm not quite ready yet.

@bkeske The seller did send it to Soundsmith and it did not yet require re-tipping. My Zephyr has about 400 Hrs on it and sounds great to me. I figure I will send it in at 1000 Hrs. Really can’t beat a rebuild at 20% of original price. Does any other manufacturer do this? 
Again thanks for the heads up. Nice to have a backup of similar quality and the same re-tipping potential at a very reasonable cost.

@millercarbon—

I pray the Hyperion has that magical midrange. 

@rickd1235 

@bkeske The seller did send it to Soundsmith and it did not yet require re-tipping. My Zephyr has about 400 Hrs on it and sounds great to me. I figure I will send it in at 1000 Hrs. Really can’t beat a rebuild at 20% of original price. Does any other manufacturer do this?
Again thanks for the heads up. Nice to have a backup of similar quality and the same re-tipping potential at a very reasonable cost.

That is outstanding.

And no, no other company does that. I follow a forum which one of the SoundSmith cart techs posts, and he has stated many times that there is no way they make money on re-tipping/re-building charges. That Peter is basically giving that service at cost, if not less.