Questionable service at Soundsmith

I started this thread because one I wanted to vent, Secondly to share what has been my experience and warn those who might be contemplating on retipping their cartridges.  I am rather surprised by some of the not so good comments here.  I thought people on Audiogon are audiophiles who are far more refined or classy.  My bad.  Like I said, I was trying to be nice and not hound Soundsmith.  I have a busy life.  I'm work in finance, play sports and have a very active social life.  I'd be happy if at all, I could squeeze in some time to listen to my system.  Trust,  a year would go by real fast.  Well, I really had spent much more time here than I needed to.  It's been fun reading some of the comments, specially the ones of support.  This is my last post on the subject.  Ciao!    

Rather than to conclude that they did a one-hour rush job on your cartridge after you finally got through to them with your complaint, I am more inclined to believe that your cartridge may have been rebuilt months ago and then stuck on a shelf somewhere, either through a bookkeeping error or simple negligence.  Your contact, which might justifiably have been done six months earlier, at least, finally made someone look around the shop to find your cartridge.  I would not indict SS for this sort of error.  In the end, they did not cheat you, and I doubt they ever would cheat you or anyone else deliberately.  It's a boutique business that seems entirely dependent upon the skill of one man who is not getting any younger, and maybe one or two disciples to whom Peter is hopefully teaching the art of cartridge repair.  Even so, I would bet that no re-tip leaves SS until PL has inspected the finished product. If Peter has had health problems in recent months, that could be the whole reason for your long wait.  All's well that ends well.

Soundsmith seems to be one of this forum’s sacred cows (reputation for stellar work, not a lot of competition). Posting anything critical about them is going to get you some responses you don’t like. I was going to send them a Sumiko cart that I’m selling for service but couldn’t stomach the stated wait time listed on their site.

So, after digging around online I saw some positive feedback for Andy Kim at Needle Clinic. I sent it to him for a re-tip. All it needed as a damper replacement. Two (2) week turnaround. $250. YMMV

This is not a exception. It took a year of waiting with no response for my friend with his Sony XL55 shipped to SoundSmith. Same situation. They are very slow and cartridge can be easily lost for some time and then re-discovered (somewhere on their shelfs), fixed and shipped. Normally they offer discount after all !

Question:  do you pay SS up front, or when the cartridge is ready to ship.