Vintage HiFi Audio Forum

Audio Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: OldiesButGoodies on May 28, 2015, 08:29:04 PM

Title: The Soundsmith
Post by: OldiesButGoodies on May 28, 2015, 08:29:04 PM

A quick note to highlight the good experience I had using the Soundsmith to clean and retip my van de hul frog cartridge.  They did a fantastic job for half the price the manufacturer quoted.   The sound is now as good or better than when I bought it.  Recommend them.

Title: Re: The Soundsmith
Post by: MacGeek on May 28, 2015, 09:19:27 PM

Retipping I understand.  Since your cart was retipped, what is cleaning?

Title: Re: The Soundsmith
Post by: OldiesButGoodies on May 28, 2015, 09:43:00 PM

Quote from: MacGeek on May 28, 2015, 09:19:27 PM

Retipping I understand.  Since your cart was retipped, what is cleaning?

This was their diagnosis:

The cartridge has a lot of debris in and around it which we will need to clean up and the CL stylus is very worn. I would suggest replacing it with our CL stylus mounted to the existing Boron cantilever

I assume the boron cantilever had mothballs of dirt etc dampening its movement.

Title: Re: The Soundsmith
Post by: papabearjew on May 29, 2015, 12:09:55 AM

It's kind of like a circumcision...

Title: Re: The Soundsmith
Post by: schwarcw on May 29, 2015, 12:33:39 AM

My experience with the Soundsmith was very good also.  I upgraded my Zu Denon 103R with a ruby cantilever and a contour diamond.  I ha already "nuded" my 103R cartridge and potted it into a solid aluminum headshell.  What a great improvement over the stock 103R.

Some photos!

(http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p97/schwarcw/Zu4.jpg) (http://s126.photobucket.com/user/schwarcw/media/Zu4.jpg.html)

(http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p97/schwarcw/Zu3.jpg) (http://s126.photobucket.com/user/schwarcw/media/Zu3.jpg.html)

(http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p97/schwarcw/Zu2.jpg) (http://s126.photobucket.com/user/schwarcw/media/Zu2.jpg.html)

(http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p97/schwarcw/Zu5.jpg) (http://s126.photobucket.com/user/schwarcw/media/Zu5.jpg.html)

Title: Re: The Soundsmith
Post by: MacGeek on May 29, 2015, 06:32:11 AM

Lots of micro surgery.  I wonder how they do it.

Pepe-Carl, what is the turn around time?  I need to have my B & O MMC 2 looked at and probably retipped.

Title: Re: The Soundsmith
Post by: OldiesButGoodies on May 29, 2015, 08:07:35 AM

For my cart I think it was 8 weeks.  For B&O stuff  they do faster,  because apparently they do that quite often.   Cool feature is that you can check into the status of the repair as they update the order status throughout the process.

Title: Re: The Soundsmith
Post by: schwarcw on May 29, 2015, 06:37:06 PM

About 6 weeks.  In the Summer, it could be less.