shibata or microline, pls respond ONLY if you specifically have tried both.
I only want to hear FIRST hand experience, not lecturing please.
These two seem too confusing to me. I have a VM540ML AT cartridge and cannot decide whether Shibata or Microline is better. AGAIN, PLS DO NOT LECTURE ME ABOUT **OTHER** EXPENSIVE CARTRIDGES.
To me obviously the music quality matters. However, I also give a lot of importance to how durable one stylus over the other one is AND very importantly, which one is easier (less finnicky) to set up. Also, it is important that the stylus does not degrade the vinyl excessively.
If you tell me an elliptical is easiest to set up but is 10% less musical, I would probably go with that too.
So.... any ACTUAL experience with either of these two styli ?
Anyone can easily make a perfect alignment of Shibata or MicroLine if you have a decent protractor (like Dr.Feickert for example), tonearm with VTA adjustment and a headshell with azimuth adjustment, also a little bit of experience in cartridge alignment on a turntable/tonearm. What do you use ?
MicroLine is equal to MicroRidge (SAS) and both are better than Shibata. Look here. You can use MicroLine longer than Shibata.
But Shibata is also a great profile, why not just use both ?
Anyway it depends on your system capabilities to reproduce nuances.
I have cartridges with all those profiles, i would be happy to avoid elliptical (and i don't use conical for sure). If you have Shibata then life is good, MicroLine is even better.
I have five different stylus profiles including those two and I am not sure how much they affect the performance of any individual cartridge. These are all great cartridges in their own right and all a little different. Their tracking ability is a little different but I am not sure how much the stylus profile affects this either. You would have to put these styluses on exactly the same cartridge to figure this out.
Thanks to everyone who responded. I have a Linn Sondek with the Audiomods arm. Altho it is a great arm, it does not have an azimuth adjustment since the headshell is fixed Rega head. Sondek itself is a bit funnicky anway in trying to get the armboard exactly parallel in all directions with the plinth. That is why I was open to styli which are not (too) sensitive to setting up.
I've had both and I always seem to prefer the shibata. I like the presentation better. The shibata will be a little less friendly to surface noise in my experience.
I am not sure that people compared Shibata and MicroLine on the SAME CARTRIDGE to say that Shibata is better.
When we’re comparing one cartridge with Shibata to another cartridge with MicroLine it is not fair comparison.
I don’t think you have to worry about setup with Audiomods tonearm. You just need a proper protractor.
I can’t remember any difficulties with MicroLine stylus, the best ever AT cartridges such as AT-ML170 and AT-ML180 comes with MicroLine stylus. Those carts are giant killers!
It is a bit strange that you need somebody else to tell you which stylus profile is better. I like both Shibata and MicroLine, but on top of the line AT cartridges i like MicroLine.
My thoughts exactly chakster. Cakyo, your arm is depending on the erroneous fact that most cartridges are build correctly. You can adjust the azimuth slightly by raising and lowering the back of the arm if that is possible. Azimuth is more important than stylus rake angle IMHO. You raise the arm and the stylus will tilt to the right as you view the stylus from the front, down and it will tilt to the left. All of the better cartridges I have aligned are close enough that this method will work.
Whatever you choose, inspect the cartridge out of the box to make sure that the stylus is perfectly aligned to have no azimuth tilt when installed. As mijostyn mentioned, you can change tilt slightly by raising or lowering the arm (because of the offset of the headshell), but, I have found that these narrow profile styli are particularly sensitive to rake angle setting in terms of the sound.
I have no idea which intrinsically sounds better--I generally choose a narrow profile stylus because of their reputation for longevity and gentle treatment of the records, but, I have not specifically tried to discern audible differences.
Maybe I am not using the terminology right here.... By azimuth, I meant looking at the cartridge head on, NOT from the side. My armplate has caused the arm to be leaning (only a few degrees) to the right. This can be fixed by 'twisting' a movable headshell but not doable on the Rega (Audiomods) head.
Is this not called the azimuth (or rake angle). Audiomods have a micrometer with which the VTA can be adjusted. That is not the issue.
I think mijostyn et al are saying that azimuth changes when you adjust VTA. If not, please someone correct me. Yes, I think it would change by a very little bit, but one does not have free choice in setting VTA; VTA first and foremost has to be set to achieve the desired tonal balance and also to adjust SRA (whether one likes it or not, changing VTA is the way most of us change SRA). Thus, the final choice of VTA is very restricted by these other primary goals and would be a poor way to change azimuth. (In fact, I never heard of such a thing, so maybe I misunderstand what mijostyn and larryi are saying here.) But I do see their point that azimuth is secondarily slightly affected by VTA.
I have an AT-150MLX and have used both the Shibata and MicroLine stylus. I can't decide which I like more. Currently my 150 has the ATN150Sa(Shibata) on it. I enjoy it most with newer digital sourced records. The original 150 MicroLine stylus is used more for 60's and 70's records because it seems to pickup less surface noise. I enjoy having the options.
"Azimuth on the fly". THAT I would like to see.I say this because the only proper way to adjust azimuth is to rotate the headshell (or the end of the tonearm that is offset at an angle) around its axis. If you rotate the whole tonearm back near the pivot, you are not only changing azimuth; you are also changing zenith (too complicated for me to explain here). My Triplanar is guilty of that minor sin; azimuth is adjusted by rotating the arm wand back near the pivot, so when you do make an adjustment, it also affects the angle of the plane to which the cartridge should be perpendicular (zenith). So, I am the happy owner of a 10.5-inch Reed 2A, an older model that precedes the 3P. My 2A permits azimuth adjustment by rotation of the permanently fixed offset headshell, as it should without affecting zenith, but I cannot imagine doing that while playing an LP. Chakster, can you say how the 3P manages to permit azimuth adjustment on the fly, without all sorts of danger to the delicate parts of a cartridge?
as for comparing micro line and shibata, this can now be done with JUST the shaped diamond stylus itself being the single differential, for proper single cause analysis.
If one buys the shibata version and the micro line version, this single cause analysis can actually be done. It’s not perfect as tests go, but it is as good a single cause test that you’ll ever get to. In this audio technica example set, the single difference is the diamond. The motor, the mounting the gluing the cantilever the suspension, etc, all the same.
I’ve got both right here and have done exactly that, but have additionally owned and used multitudes of each type stylus as equipped on various cartridges, over the years.
... If you rotate the whole tonearm back near the pivot, you are not only changing azimuth; you are also changing zenith (too complicated for me to explain here). My Triplanar is guilty of that minor sin; azimuth is adjusted by rotating the arm wand back near the pivot, so when you do make an adjustment, it also affects the angle of the plane to which the cartridge should be perpendicular (zenith).
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. When you align azimuth, the goal is to have the stylus/cantilever assembly perpendicular to the groove, which is essentially in the plane of the record. Whether you make that angular adjustment by rotating the headshell or the pickup arm, it’s the same adjustment and objective. In this context, azimuth and zenith are the same thing.
if you think I’m mistaken, please explain how the "zenith" - as you call it - would be measured independently of azimuth, and how those two angles could possibly be different when measuring a single cartridge on a single pickup arm.
Cakyol, with the Linn, the armboard and platter (record surface) are mounted to the same suspension platform and those should be parallel AND level. Not sure why your armboard would not be parallel with the platter. I am assuming your use of the term arm plate is synonymous with armboard. Please disregard if this is not the case.
Thanks for writing. Yes, on the Linn, those SHOULD be absolutely parallel. But as you know, since the armboard is not an integral part of the suspended sub chassis plate which has the main bearing, due to some anomaly, those are not absolutely flat in my case. There is about 1.5 mm warp. And as a result, I am not able to balance the table perfectly. It may be a defective sub chassis.
I may upgrade to an ’integral’ unit where both the armplate & the bearing plate are just one machined piece, like the Keel or something cheaper.
cleeds, "Zenith" is not something I made up. If you have a pivoted tonearm with headshell offset, and if you then alter azimuth by rotating the arm wand back near the pivot (BEFORE the headshell offset angle is introduced), then the headshell itself not only rotates in the vertical plane described by azimuth but it also changes angle in a second plane which would alter the horizontal. That affects VTA and probably affects the contact patches between stylus tip and groove in ways not favorable, slightly. For example, if you rotate to the right or to the outer grooves of an LP, to change azimuth in that direction, then the rear of the headshell dips downward a bit with respect to its leading edge. That action is changing zenith. How important this is, I would not care to say, but it's real. From a purist point of view, it's best not to change zenith while changing azimuth. This can only be done if you rotate the headshell about its own longitudinal axis, without changing position of the arm wand. I didn't intend to make a big deal out of this, but it is real. You apparently subscribe to the physical definition of perfect azimuth, making the stylus square to the groove walls above all else. Some others do it electrically, which does not always leave the stylus tip square to the groove. I am actually coming over to your way of thinking after years of doing it electrically (least measured crosstalk being the electrical goal).
If you have a pivoted tonearm with headshell offset, and if you then alter azimuth by rotating the arm wand back near the pivot (BEFORE the headshell offset angle is introduced), then the headshell itself not only rotates in the vertical plane described by azimuth but it also changes angle in a second plane which would alter the horizontal.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve never used a pickup arm that adjusts azimuth with the arm wand that I’m having such trouble understanding this. In particular, I don’t see how offset affects this angle, but maybe that isn’t what you meant to say.
If you rotate the arm wand, it seems to me the phono cartridge should ideally only be moving in one plane. If it’s moving in more than one plane, that suggests some error in either the pickup arm geometry itself and/or the arm’s manufacturing tolerances. Normally, zenith would be adjusted by simply rotating the cartridge within the headshell, no?
If when you rotate your arm wand to set azimuth it also alters the zenith of the phono cartridge, how do you then adjust the zenith (after setting azimuth) to the correct angle?
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