Soundsmith cartridges

I loved the Soundsmith Voice which is also making a friend very happy. I gave it to him for his 70th birthday. I am just shy of jumping for the Hyperion MR myself. I have an email out to Peter Ledermann asking how he thinks it will perform with a current mode phono stage, the Channel D Seta L Plus. At 10 ohms it might make it, but it is close. 

I have Auditioned the regular Hyperion at Soundmith's music room using my own records and could not come close to making it miss track. It smoothly handled passages that can come across sibilant with many cartridges. Knowing the Voice really well the only question mark is how well it does the 3rd dimension and I won't know that until I play it on my system. The Voice was mid pack in that regard. The best in my system has been the Lyra Atlas SL followed by the MC Diamond. Both are expensive to rebuild. The beauty of the Soundsmith cartridges is that the rebuild cost is very low in comparison. 

I'm not sure the upgrades to the Hyperion MR will make much of a difference. Soundsmith was already using an excellent stylus and the lower moving mass might improve tracking, but the Hyperion's tracking abilities were already excellent. It will handle groove velocities higher than any cartridge currently made. 

I might also add that dealing with Soundsmith has always been a pleasure and Peter goes out of his way to make sure you are happy. 

@lewm 

I just asked Peter that question and he responded yesterday, on a Holiday no less. He does make a Current Mode version of the Hyperion but he prefers the Voltage Mode version. When I had the Voice I was using an AR phono stage. My Seta L Plus has both TI and Voltage operation, switchable on the front panel. The loading switches for Voltage Mode are on the back panel. 

@rdk777 

You sure can. The coils and magnets are identical. A rebuild replaces everything that moves. I do not think there will be much of a change. The Hyperion already has an excellent stylus. The micro ridge stylus might track very high frequencies better, but we can't hear that high. 

@lewm 

I was wondering that also but I did not feel like bothering him asking for the specifics. He thinks the voltage mode works better so I went with that.