Shelter 501 mkii then what now

I have only used a SS Level 2 stylus on my 501 since buying it used: under a microscope it the original stylus showed a lot of wear and the seller kindly and immediately paid for a retip. Pretty cool.

So: the Level 2 is revelatory for me, particularly against the elliptical styli Shelter likes to use. It simply gets into areas of the groove that haven't been played before, and reawakens a lot of older records I'd written off. I really am an adherent of the Level 2 upgrade because its profile isn't as severe and difficult to line up as the Shibata Level 3 tip. Hope this helps.

I talked to Andy Kim and he told me the micro line stylus with the Boron cantilever would make it better than a 901 improve the sound more than $100,000 amp so this is the the way I'm headed I'll keep you all informed

What is the original cantilever? (Aluminum, boron, or Ruby/sapphire?). And what is the shape of the OEM stylus? Thx.

I had a 501 re-tipped at SoundSmith with the OCR.  It was fine.  But it was easy to tell that an Audio Technica Art-9 outperformed it.  The re-tipped 501 was easy to sell.