To the OP
You would almost definitely lose the tip. You might try to get a little thin CA in the split area, squeeze it down tight and let the glue set.
What's happened is that the carbon fiber has separated between the layers of carbon weave. Most likely it experienced a "lifting" or upward pressure at some time to cause it. The impact of hitting the ball only compresses. The sound you here is when the small open area gets slammed closed when you hit the ball. If you could glue it closed, you'd never know it ever happened. Of course, if you'd like to send it to us we'd be happy to do the work for no charge. It's not really a defect, but we'd do it anyway. But, you would have to send us the tip.
You might want to mention to your tip guy that he should always cut towards the joint end of the shaft. In other words, start off the tip end and cut towards the joint. If he cuts the other way when he trimmed down your tip, it could have separated the carbon layers. I'm certainly not saying that's what happened. Just that it's possible. If you do want to send it in, just go to our website and follow the instructions there.
For 9ballr
I'm not sure how familiar you are with our products, but here's a little info.
The carbon fiber pad doesn't soften the hit. It's there for tensile strength to protect the ferrule. Also, installing the tip directly on the end of a shaft will actually hit a little softer than most traditional ferruled shafts would. When you see a custom cuemaker do that, he's actually making the shaft lower cue ball squirt by removing the weight in the ferrule. Those shafts are susceptible to splitting though, if they don't have something like our carbon fiber pad to protect it.
As for the shafts hitting softer, we actually make two distinctly different styles of hit. Our wood ferruled shafts, the OB-1+ and the OB-2+, are designed to be soft and solid. Believe it or not, there are very many players who prefer that softer quieter hit. On the other hand, our Classic and Pro models are built for the firm crisp or stiff hit. They feel very much more like the traditional ferruled shaft would feel. We offer the choice so either preference can still get the benefits of very low cue ball squirt.
I hope that helps!
Royce