What are the differences ?

You know, I have nothing against OLD cartridges, most of my favorite cartridges are old, but they are not refurbished. 

You can buy perfectly working cartridges for the price you will pay just for the new cantilever/tip to retipper. 

If you can accept only MC cartridges then HANA is the one post people are raving about and some of them are under $500. 

I would buy an MI or MM cartridge instead of spending money on refurbishing Ortofon Salsa. 

Talking about equal expenses, or very close. 

I think that refurbishing is not the only option you can get. 

But a cantilever will make a difference, in your situation you can get a better cantilever for your Salsa. But if you like SoundSmith buy his own MI cartridge or something else.  

First of all having only 300 dollars doesn't give me much options . Even the Hana cost 500 dollars . But 300 to retipped a cartridge that I know sounds great in my system with my turntable is not bad , especially considering I'm getting a line contact stylus with a shappire cantilever with 1 year warranty is I consider a great deal . On MM I have a Nagaoka MP110 which for the price sounds great and a very good Grado MI . The Salsa sounds substantially better then both.

I just received my repaired and retipped Ortofon cartridge from soundsmith and I must say it looks beautiful . The shappire cantilever is smooth as a babys butt and the line contact stylus looks really nice . I'll keep you guys updated on the sound as soon as I install it . SoundSmith seems to do really nice work . 

Just mounted and heard my Ortofon Salsa MC cartridge with new shappire cantilever and line contact stylus by soundsmith and it sounds excellent . These guys do great work and I can whole heartly recommend them . By the way the cartridge sounds better then what it used to . I don't know if this is because of the usage and age of the cartridge or a funtion of the new shappire cantilever ( having been of aluminum ) all I can say is that it sounds better by a margin .