To place a fly into the ointment, consider this:
- Fine line contact styli have FAR greater surface contact area versus conical styli. When balanced for equal VTF, this means the fine line will be far less likely to cause groove damage.
- A fine line contact stylus has a greater angle of attack on groove perturbations. This heightens the risk of groove damage vs conical styli but is heavily influenced by the deflection of the groove wall under the stylus. A record with higher quantities of plasticizers will deflect more and therefore be more at risk from damage from high angles of attack from the stylus. This issue has not been conclusively studied in the scientific literature, but we intend to do so starting with heavy use on lacquers.
My experience and my gut says that groove damage is primarily a function of tonearm horizontal forces being out of control and very secondarily by excessive VTF and dirty styli. At 33rpm and at innermost grooves only, conical styli *MIGHT* retain a small advantage but otherwise fine line styli are safer. Again, I cannot yet prove this due to lack of data on deflection/angle of attack.
Get your tonearm under control and you’ll have less to worry about (and sound better too!)