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A visit to Soundsmith

Posted by Rob Doorack (A) on July 26, 2009 at 12:05:06

On Saturday July 25 Peter Ledermann graciously hosted a visit of the Connecticut Audio Society to his Soundsmith factory and showroom in Peeksill, NY. Although Soundsmith kept a relatively low profile until recently, the company has been in business for several decades. Originally an audio equipment repair facility (Soundsmith did all of Tandberg's US repairs, for example), Soundsmith expanded to producing a line of phono cartridges based on Bang and Olufsen's moving iron design. Soundsmith now offers phono preamps, speakers, power amps, a highly regarded retipping service, and a unique strain gauge phono cartridge system. Soundsmith is also a school where young people are mentored in the art of audio repair. According to Peter, over 35 students have been trained in his program and gone on to reapir jobs with other companies. Oh, and in his spare time Peter runs DirectGrace Records. A large portion of the DirectGrace's sales goes to charities to rescue some of the world's 245 million children held in slavery. Buy a DirectGrace record and you feed a child for a month.

Mr. Ledermann was an very entertaining and gregarious host. After lunch and a tour of the phono cartridge assembly area, the CAS spent several hours listening to records we'd brought on Peter's demo system. The turntable was a VPI HRX with JMW 12.7 and Schröder Reference arms. The Schröder held Soundsmith's strain gauge cartridge while the JMW carried a prototype of Soundsmith's new $4500 low output Cicero moving iron cartridge. The Cicero was amplified by Soundsmith's MCP2 MC head amp. The preamp was Soundsmith's SG810 and the power amp was Soundsmith's 300 watts per channel model. We mostly listened to Soundsmith's Monarch speaker. The Monarch had a surprisingly big sound and played deeper than you'd expect from its 6" woofer. I'd heard the strain gauge cartridge before and was once again awed by its incredible dynamics.

I had a chat with Peter about cartridge maintenance. He said that occaisonal application of a liquid stylus cleaner is OK but a dry brush should be used for most routine cleaning. We don't really know what is in most stylus cleaning fluids. The epoxy used to hold stylii to cantilevers is hygroscopic which means that it could conceivably absorb tiny amounts of a water based stylus cleaner, expanding the epoxy. Subsequent use of the cartridge would heat up the stylus and drive off the water, causing the epoxy to shrink again. Over time this could cause the stylus to loosen in the cantilever.

The highlight of the visit for me was watching Peter cut a lacquer dub on one of his two Neumann lathes. DirectGrace's LPs are recorded in Soundsmith's showroom and mastered by Peter. A dub is a 12" lacquer cut from the master tape and is usually used for checking the sound of the recording. A master for LP production is normally cut on a 14" lacquer disc; the pressing plant trims the disc to size. Peter cut two tracks from guitarist John Hart at 45RPM and then played it for us. It was an astounding experience to hear a first generation disc. There was no surface noise at all - according to Peter a new dub has a signal to noise ratio of 90db. I've never heard anything like it. Peter's minimalist recording technique and the strain gauge cartridge's explosive sound made Hart materialize back in the room with us.

The visit to Soundsmith was a great deal of fun and very educational. I'd like to thank Peter Ledermann and the rest of his staff for their generosity and hospitality. He's a special guy.

Peter Ledermann speaking to the Connecticut Audio Society.


Peter's VPI HRX.


Soundsmith preamps. The small box on top is the upcoming lower - priced strain gauge preamp that lacks the cool monitoring
displays of the pricier models, but Peter says it sounds identical to them. In the background on the window sill are two
power supplies for SG cartridges.


The cartridge assembly room at Soundsmith.


Workstation where cantilevers and elastomers are attached to the iron cross that gives moving iron cartridges their name.
This station is also where stylii are inserted into cantilevers.


Another view of the iron assembly workstation.


Trays of stylus guards and cartridge bodies wait to be assembled.


The components of a Soundsmith MI cartridge.


Cartridge coil assemblies.


Workstation where coils are cold - welded to the output wires. The coil wires are a miniscule 1 mil in diameter.
Ledermann invented a new way to do the welding. Over 50,000 welds have been done with not one failure in the field!


Test bench for finished cartridges.


Bench where Soundsmith speakers are assembled.


Soundsmith's Neumann record cutting lathe.


The lathe's control panels. The left hand buttons start and stop the platter, turn on the drive to spiral the cutting head inward,
add a gap between tracks, and automatically cut the run - out groove. The buttons on the right set the speed. The rotary
controls at the bottom are for manually adjusting the groove pitch which is only done during direct - to - disc cutting.


Neumann cutting head.


Bottom view of cutting head. The amber hose carries helium to the head to cool it.


Soundsmith's primary lathe is equipped with the ultra - rare Technics replacement motor.

Rack of electronics for that drive the lathe and cutter head. Peter plans to replace the original Neumann cutting amps
with new ones of his own design. He's also planning to design his own inverse RIAA equalizer to replace the Neumann one.


Peter Ledermann cleaning the cutting stylus with acetone prior to cutting the John Hart dub. Note the smooth surface of the lacquer disc on the platter.


Soundsmith's Neumann lathe at work.


Peter's second Neumann lathe came from The Hit Factory. It's a historic machine - it was used to cut the masters for records
by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Madonna.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Signature Sound

[ Signature Sound Lounge ]

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