Soundsmith's turnaround time?

I had Peter retip a Shelter 901 and a Phase Tech P3-G recently. Wait time was 16 weeks, which was a few weeks more than I was initially quoted, but I didn't mind. The work is wonderful. The Phase Tech sounds better than factory and tracks *much* better. I'm enjoying it so much I haven't even mounted the Shelter yet!

Peter Ledermann is one of the good guys in the industry. He is helpful and generous with his knowledge and his re-tipping service is extremely competitively priced. Remember too that if your cart is unrepairable there is no charge made for his time spent investigating/working on it. I don't think you can get a fairer deal than that.

From my experience Soundsmith operate a first-in first out system where carts are held in line and worked on in order. With one pair of hands and eyes the time before your cart gets looked at can vary depending on what else has come in before yours.

Some of you guys need to get real - no business is going to turn work away when the economy is like it is right now. And as others have said, all the other companies that do rebuilds are no faster but are more expensive. You've just got to accept that this is highly specialized work and you can't just go out and hire temporary help to increase throughput.

I sent in mine in May 2009 and I didn’t get it back till mid-Dec 2009 (Christmas present?); after listening to it for few hours, all my frustration and discomfit has varnished.

It is now Monday morning,and I have looked into Mr. Moffitt's cartridge issues. It was delayed due to:

1) The manner in which he sent it from England caused us to pay import duties for these two high end cartridges. They were held by UPS while we fought with them over this issue, which was never resolved. We finally had to pay to receive them.

2) One had been worked on by VDH, and has serious issues - I cannot tell when the serious damage to the suspension occurred. Repair is risky; it may fail completely during the attempt, at which point I do not get paid anything.
3) The other cartridge has some very serious manufacturing flaws. VERY serious. Then it was damaged by the customer. I have repaired the customer damage aspect, but need to see if there is a simpler way to resolve the GLARING manufacturing error. This cartridge NEVER worked properly, and it is a very, very high end cartridge.

As these were both seriously damaged and flawed units, I bypassed them to think about new ways of resolving their issues BEFORE contacting Mr. Moffatt above. I will now contact him with the rather limited possbilities. It may well be that I will lose all the time I have into BOTH these cartrdiges, and even more time lost if I attempt and fail.

I am constantly stretched between stopping what I am doing at the microscope and contacting customers. If I interrupted myself more, my throughput would be far less, and my rates would go up. Also, like your doctor, I might be forced to charge you whether I succeed or not.

I do stop from time to time, sit at my desk and make a series of calls. That is the most efficient way to work for me at this time. What I *should* put on our retipping/rebuilding page is that if you don't hear from me in the allotted time frame, your cartridge has more serious propblems than normally found, and I am trying to either be creative about how to rebuild it with new techniques for less cost to you, or find a VERY quiet evening to spend on it without interruption.

Unlike my verbal responses, I often fix tough problems by first thinking extensively.

Peter Ledermann/Soundsmith

Peter,
I have to say I appreciate your time, experience, and pricing! Like I stated above(more or less in nicer words) many get caught up in these very expensive exotic carts. that ultimately many of us know they are in no way better or worse than one at 200 bucks in some cases(not all), and is exactly why you will continue getting many trying to give you a shot hoping to find that perfect deal and save them time and money.

This is exactly why many of these carts are only worth a "500.00 credit" from the manufacture but originally costs 5000! That has to tell somebody something when they get that deep into this hobby.

And by the way you should not feel to much guilt over this, fact of the matter these people took a shot, so A) they keep a cart. that is garbage anyway, no way to move forward, or B) they give you a shot and hope within the year they save it, and save them a lot of money. Your service is a difficult position to be in I am sure. Not saying this is an excuse for communication problems, separate issue.

Thank you for your responses and good luck with future business.