Re-tipped cartridges

I had Soundsmith rebuild a Dynavector XX-2 MkII that I bought with the cantilever broken off (seller was nice to sell it on the condition that Soundsmith confirmed that the cart was repairable). So no chance to A/B before and after. The rebuilt cart ($250 ruby cantilever with line contact stylus) was fabulous sounding. But it was my first high end cart and had nothing else comparable. Moved up from MMs like Shure M91ED with a JICO SAS (a great budget MM).

I have had 4 cartridges rebuilt by Soundsmith with new stylus. Each was as good as original, if not better.

I had a Phase Tech P-3 retipped by Soundsmith as i wanted to keep the sonics of the cartridge the same but replace a worn stylus. Retipping is just that and not replacement of the cantilever too as incorrectly stated above. The original stylus is removed and a new one bonded onto the existing cantilever.

There is no change at all in the characteristics of the cartridge from the original which is exactly what i wanted. When the retip wears out then i shall more than likely get the same thing done again.

I recently had my Benz LP retipped by SoundSmith, and I am very pleased with the job. Since the cartridge had not been used for several months before I sent it off, I can't say for sure that it sounds identical to the stock Benz, but I am not aware of any differences.

My Benz had Peter's "retip only" which costs more since it is more difficult to attach a new tip to the existing cantilever. However, that is what he recommended and I think the results speak for themselves. As far as I can tell, I have a brand new Benz LP that is fully equal to what I started with. Considering that Musical Surroundings says Benz is no longer offering their own factory rebuild program, SoundSmith is truly providing an essential service.

It is difficult to fathom the degree of misinformation on fundamental things in this forum. Peter Lederman of SS will only keep the existing cantilever and bond a new stylus onto it at great additional expense, if he agrees to do it in the first place. The degree of labor and precision required to fit a new stylus onto the existing cantilever is exponential compared to taking a pre-fabbed (if you will) cantilever/stylus and mounting it, which is labor intensive enough The vast majority of retips done by Peter involve a replacement of the cantilever stylus with one of three combinations he offers. All one has to do is look at his website to see this. That said, one of my two Benz Gliders S Los that I sent to Peter to be re-tipped with his mid-level combo ($250) sounds better than it did brand new out of the box from Benz. Why that is, who knows. I have another Benz Glider that sounds fantastic and equal to the SS re-tipped one, and it is OEM out of the box. One can only presume that much of it has to do with sample to sample product variation.