Stylus shapes!

The stylus on my Koetsu is a real small pointy shape. The Benz Ruby, Glider, and Stanton were real small and pointy too. They all sounded different, even in spite of using the same small pointy shape. I think maybe there is a little more going on.

My favorite part is the diagram that shows how the effective tracking angle changes with the different stylus shapes. That is indeed exactly what happens. Regardless of stylus shape the effective tracking angle is constantly changing, sometimes dramatically, the whole time the record is playing.

Please study this, and ask yourself, so then how important can it really be to stress over tiny fractions of a whatever when mounting a cartridge? This is just one more reason why I keep saying it is not. Get it real close, sure. But stress out to the point you are using a microscope and a thousand dollars worth of alignment jigs? No way.

Also study that picture and ask yourself, how is this any different in the case of a tangential tracking arm? It’s not. The diagram shows it. 

The more I think about it the more it seems these little technical details are nice to know but ultimately don't tell us near what we think they do. 

What about 'em? !!

Since 'advanced shapes' have been about for 40 to 50 years without one being crowned supreme could it be that its a matter of taste and music genre?

Unless you have access to a meticulously setup tt, the more advanced shapes are fussier as to VTA, Azimuth, etc. A simpler shape will be less critical of setup, and in the hands of the average audiophool (like me!) may sound as good.

Thanks for posting. I always thought a Shibata and a Fine Line were the same!

So far, my experience with the Jico SAS shape has been limited to a replacement T4P stylus for a Technics MM cartridge inside the SL7 and SL10 turntables. While it was immediately clear that the SAS tracks significantly more accurately than any of the other styluses that I tried, I felt that its high accuracy also lead to a drier and leaner sound that instilled less of a “boogie” feeling in me. At the time, I also used the best Elliptical stylus that I could find: the one that was also made by Jico. In comparison, the latter provided beefier bass and a fuller, sweeter sound. The Jico Elliptical stylus’ treble was better than that of all other Elliptical styluses but the SAS clearly beat it in this regard, especially with slightly worn records.

What he’s talking about in his article ???

Cartridge for Technics SL-10 is p205c mk3 with Boron Pipe cantilever (I have mk4 now), JICO never made anything like that for this particular model. Here is a list of Jico cartridges for Technics.

They made SAS/Boron Rod and later Neo Sas with Ruby and Sapphire cantilevers, but it was NOT for P-mount version of Technics cartridges.

Am I missed something ? Links? 

Also those SL-10 and even SL-15 are cool turntables, but not a reference class with its simple linear tracking (automatic) tonearms.


P.S. There are many more profiles that not even mentioned in his compilation of various info from well known forums. Profile and cantilever (and the way the stylus mounted on cantilever) is far more important that just a profile type.

My favorite part is the diagram that shows how the effective tracking angle changes with the different stylus shapes. That is indeed exactly what happens. Regardless of stylus shape the effective tracking angle is constantly changing, sometimes dramatically, the whole time the record is playing.

I presume you are talking about the image from above showing how the Horizontal Tracking Angle (HTA / Zenith) changes as high frequencies are traced.  To me that diagram clearly tells me that for the advanced profiles that attempt to mimmic the cutting stylus has far less change over the course of playing music than the conical which effectively has a "variable zenith".

Please study this, and ask yourself, so then how important can it really be to stress over tiny fractions of a whatever when mounting a cartridge?

This depends on what profile you are using.  I find that if you have a conical then the most important thing is to have the cantilever tangent to the groove.  If you go to the other extreme and have a micro-ridge, suddenly the most important thing is that the faces of the contact patch follow that of the cutting stylus independent of the cantilever angle.  Other profiles fall somewhere in the grey area in-between.  It was very surprising to me how much a change of 0.25° of Zenith has on an alignment geometry and couple that to the tolerance of Zenith set to the cantilever and I want to throw the concept of an alignment protractor out the window.

dave