Does anyone repair Lyra cartridges?

Ditto. I would get in touch with Lyra. They are so good about trade-ins that they are probably helpful about things like this too.

I am currently using the Helicon SL and LOVE it! By going the route of Soundsmith for retipping, I'm concerned if the retip will improve or alter the basic chararcteristics of the Helicon? Any advice?

My 2 cents is that your should have Lyra repair it. I am not demeaning Soundsmith, but I suspect the unit will be different...maybe better, maybe not, however, you can be sure it wont be a Lyra. I always bring my cars into the dealer to be sure I still have the same engineering as I originally purchased.

I had my Ortofon Kontrapunkt B retipped before and it sounded just like the original - not better nor worse. Strange...

Any Lyra owners who have their carts retipped by Soundsmith would like to comment?