SoundSmith cartridges how good?

@millercarbon—

I pray the Hyperion has that magical midrange. 

@rickd1235 

@bkeske The seller did send it to Soundsmith and it did not yet require re-tipping. My Zephyr has about 400 Hrs on it and sounds great to me. I figure I will send it in at 1000 Hrs. Really can’t beat a rebuild at 20% of original price. Does any other manufacturer do this?
Again thanks for the heads up. Nice to have a backup of similar quality and the same re-tipping potential at a very reasonable cost.

That is outstanding.

And no, no other company does that. I follow a forum which one of the SoundSmith cart techs posts, and he has stated many times that there is no way they make money on re-tipping/re-building charges. That Peter is basically giving that service at cost, if not less.

Hello,
AJ523-agree 100%. Also, I am now contemplating which cart on a VPI anniversary edition. 

Craig, I seems that the real improvement in the strain gauge cartridge is it's tracking performance. It more readily follows the groove with according to sources much less record wear. I would assume the term solid state means more accurate in this regard w/o tube or other colorations. As for what sounds better is a matter of taste, accurate is not always better. 
As for stylus replacement it is important to note that unless you order your strain gauge with extra styli you have to send your cartridge back to Soundsmith as each stylus has to be matched to the cartridge. So, it is no different than a moving coil or Iron cartridge in that regard. I would order mine with one extra cartridge.

In the future it would be great if we could keep the negative comments to ourselves until we know for sure it is a pattern.

That's a lovely sentiment, but it makes no sense (if no one posts until there's a "pattern", how could a pattern develop?) and as demonstrated by the numerous posts in this thread, happy customers will come to the defense of a company they've had a good experience(s) with.

I bought my Aida II used and it did not come with a stylus guard. I wrote to ask if I could purchase one and they sent me one for free. 

I had a cartridge retipped by them and it was also a positive experience.