Fun with MM cartridge

OP

no need to re-work it, it is not obvious, my friend also did not realize: the F9 Stylus is removable, you just buy one of the 6 choices listed above and change it yourself. 

After breaking my OEM Beryllium cantilever of my Shure V15Vxmr many years ago, I decided Boron was as high as I would go for both stiffness and price.

I thought GEMs: Sapphire, Ruby (actually Ruby is a Ruby COLORED Sapphire) were stiffer/better than Boron, yet I read that Boron is technically far stiffer than Sapphire, all 3 far stiffer than Aluminum and the alloy varieties.

Beryllium is off the chart lighter/stiffer than anything else, which explains my final decision to risk used cartridges with MicroLine on Beryllium, and the excitement of just finding a NOS AT160ml at a low price.

https://service.shure.com/s/article/v15v-models-and-styli?language=en_US&region=en-US

Shure’s V15Vxmr description

Beryllium MICROWALL/Be Stylus Cantilever for Lowest Effective Mass Ever! Beryllium has extremely low mass and high stiffness. These properties result in superior performance, however, only when the material is geometrically optimized. The ultra-thin (0.0005-inch) beryllium MICROWALL/Be tube, shown in Figure 1c, has the lowest effective mass and highest ratio of stiffness to mass of any stylus cantilever ever, resulting in unprecedented high-frequency trackability. Below is the Stiffness to Mass ratio for the three different types of beryllium cantilevers shown in Figure 1 (inside back cover). The physical characteristics of beryllium allow a longer length low-mass stylus structure. The resultant longer cantilever achieves the proper vertical tracking angle for a better match to the recorded signal and lower distortion. MASAR-Polished Micro-Ridge (MR) stylus tip The MR Micro-Ridge stylus tip has a very small

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In all cases I prefer the light tracking forces possible by the advanced materials.

A very nice MM option is to find a Shure V15V Body and buy a new /JICO Stylus SAS on Boron which is what I put in my old V15Vxmr body, various combos exist, pay attention to the small details.

Someone with a memory, please help

I found and posted a chart of materials stiffness in a recent discussion, anyone know where?

@elliottbnewcombjr I thought the stylus was removable. I recall buying the Ruby, but have not located it, yet. It was 40 years ago, maybe my memory is incorrect.

Joe 

I just took 37 minutes to watch this video of Art Dudley of Stereophile visiting Peter Ledermann at Soundsmith's Offices, I encourage you to remember to watch it when you can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd948px1230&t=2s

a similar thread

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/high-performance-moving-iron-cartridge-candidates

I posted there:

search youtube for soundsmith, this popped up, being retired, fresh cup of coffee, I watched and enjoyed the whole thing, over an hour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul0o7UEqtkA

of particular interest if you are short of time are:

46:30 Major advantage of Strain Gauge is seriously minimized Cantilever Jitter

51:30 Anti-Skate: set with blank side or dead wax area of VINYL (proper material for resistance on industry standard bottom of tip).

57:00 LOW output Strain Gauge cartridge versions are made for Marketing Reasons (not a reduced mass issue in strain gauge technology).

105: fix for arm with no anti-skate feature: shim up the upper left corner (assuming arm is upper right) until you get it right.

fixed coil explained here