Soundsmith retips

I have a retipped 103 that does have a difference in presentation. Faster, much faster and much more detailed. The tone though is similar to what it was previously.

AT first it was a shock. But I have grown to love it. Big difference between a conical stylus and a fine line. And I think that cantilever goes a long way on making the cartridge speed up. You could get more detail solely by getting just the fine line stylus and keeping the original cantilever especially if it was aluminum. But I think that cantilever helps reduce congestion or crowding on complex music.

The 103 I have been listening to is on loan from a friend. I just got my RA# and am shipping my cartridge off to Soundsmith based on what I have been hearing with the one I have in hand.

Soundsmith does a great job Peter did my Maestro cartridge belived me it sound better than before.

Be aware that if the stylus is merely worn out, rather than the cantilever snapped, Peter replaces only the stylus itself. He feels that removing the cantilever might compromise the suspension.

I thought about snipping off the cantilever of my 901 with diagonal cutters so he'd replace it with a ruby one, but didn't.

I had a Black retipped and I personally don't notice a difference in sound. I would definitely go back again.

I've been very pleased by Soundsmith's work, most recently on a Denon DL-103, earlier on a Grado The Reference. A friend's Koetsu Rosewood was also very impressive. The Denon sounds much better than I remember, and the Grado sounded very much like it did before. My most recent retip took 3 months to the day, so bear in mind the increasing timeframe. Dave

Dear Headsnappin: First rate.

Now I ussualy send to retip a cartridge and ask to fix it with a cantilever/stylus similar or near similar to the original, if that is possible I try to preserve the cartridge original signature but other people think in a different way.

Regards and enjoy the music.
raul.

Thanks much for the responses! Very good as usual.

I'm glad to hear you were satisfied Dan ed. I have an aging 90x that I might want to try this with. It seems a small price to pay compared to the cost of another new cartridge. It's just hard to know exactly when a cartridge is ready for a retip.

I have had my XV-1s re-tipped by Soundsmith and I'd do it again in a hearbeat. Peter does excellent work.

I don't think you will get changes in tone from a re-tip, but you will get a good bump in resolution if you go with their line-contact stylus.

The only downside I know of is that the lead times have grown a bit over the last year. That is the sign of good results.

I suspect that any rebuild/retip will sound different even if done by the original manufacturer. Depending on what you have done with Soundsmith (change a saphire cantilever for a carbon fiber, etc.) There could be a great change. Whether that is a good or bad thing only you can decide after setup.