Soundsmith re-tips received today

I just received my Grace Ruby with the select LC stylus and new ruby cantilever, from SoundSmith. I am anxious to get it up and running.

My experience is the same as Syntax. Peter has re-tipped my Sound-Smith Zephyr 2 times for the right price. It's a killer combo on my VPI Classic.

I was having difficulty diagnosing a problem in my vinyl playback chain and sent my ATOC9MLII to Peter to see if anything was amiss. He inspected it, cleaned it, mounted it and played it to evaluate the sound quality. Turned out it was fine and the problem was elsewhere. Didn't charge me a dime for the service and peace of mind. All I can say is that when the AT gives up the ghost I'll be buying a cartridge from Peter. I'm actually thinking of the Aida--any of you guys using that in a VPI Scout JMW9?

Dodgealum,

I had an Aida, the wood version, on a Scout a few years ago. It was bought brand new, but the cantilever was slightly skewed in one direction. The Aida was outstanding with jazz and acoustic music, also thought exhibited a sibilance problem with male vocals, and didn't really rock with rock music. However, this was before I knew anything about cartridge setup. The cartridge was set up by the dealer who reversed two of the lead wires to begin with. So it is possible that the Aida was never set up optimally, plus that skewed cantilever. Since then I've also upgraded my entire system, including moving up to the Lyra Delos which shines with everything you throw at it so my feedback might not be perfectly accurate. Nevertheless, I believe the Aida went up in price and is about a grand now. If I was getting a SS cartridge now, I'd probably go for the Zephyr that seems to be getting thumbs up from everyone who has it, and it matches well with VPI tonearms. My two cents.