Who needs a Diamond Cantilever...? 💍

Junctions make all the difference.

A wobbly junction is not a rigid junction. The most rigid junction is diamond-to-diamond. A less rigid junction is diamond-to-anything.

If we assume the a wobbly junction of stylus to cantilever is undesirable, and we further assume that a more rigid junction is a better junction, then the conclusion is clear.

If moving mass is THE factor, as you say, Mijo, then MI or IM cartridges would rule. Actually I could live with only that type but I’d miss LOMC and MM. Raul is the mentor who made me the pantheist I am today, where cartridges are concerned. Thanks, Raul.

IMO homogeneity of magnetic field and it's specs rules. 
All cartridge types have pros and cons but at very end of the day it's subjective - we do listen.

@lewm , I had that disease for a little while. It came to the point that I figured I had better places to spend my money. Even if moving mass is THE factor, obviously there are others and MC cartridges have come a long way in reducing moving mass. I really liked my Grado. It was a very easy cartridge to live with, no vices. After the Grado I drifted back into MCs and I had some good ones but the cost of doing business was skyrocketing and I had this itch that said MCs were very over priced. It turns out they are. I have not heard one yet that is actually worth the difference. The only avenue I have not explored yet is the current mode phono stage/ low impedance one. I will when I get around to it if I do not decide to go for Soundsmith's Strain Gauge. In the mean while I have yet to hear "The Voice"  The New York Audio Show is in December this year. Gammaman and I plan to attend. On the way down I plan on stopping at Soundsmith to hear the Strain Gauge. 

@mijostyn  lewm : signal pass through the coil wires of any cartridge design or not? because this is my point not other.

R.

mijostyn, you are rigth the LOMC are overpriced and the tendence that one.

Dover posted and I agree that for a top LOMC can shows its superior quality performance over different designs you need  a top phonolinepreamp design and I think that maybe you have not yet .

Anyway, your choice and I respect it.

R.

Dear @terry9  : "  If we assume the a wobbly junction of stylus to cantilever is undesirable..."

the key word is that " wobbly ". I don't think that the stylus tip in a boron top design could be wobbly as you assume because if that is true then due that no rigidity down there the designers just give up on boron and things are that it's not this way.

That could means that exist enough rigidity for the cartridge makes its job.

Ruby/Sapphire cantilever  function as the diamond in that regards  and common sense says that if what you posted is true all the cartridges will come with diamond/ruby/sapphire cantilevers and never boron.

Again, an overall cartridge quality performance is the sum of its design parts and quality levels of the excecution to those designs.

R.

No-one disputes that overall performance is the sum of parts. That’s a straw-man argument. And 'wobbly' is obviously relative.

However, with plenty of evidence for the proposition that more rigidity is better (see, for example SS’s recommendation of the ruby cantilever, the common use of boron in better cartridges), and the complete absence of any evidence to the contrary, it seems reasonable to try to explain WHY a Koetsu D/C sounds so very good.

I suggest that a good place to look is the rigidity of the diamond/diamond junction. The measure of that is Young’s modulus.

Young’s modulus, according to the "Engineer’s Toolbox", is as follows:
Al 69 GPa
Boron 360-470 (from Azom)
Corundum (ruby, sapphire) 435
C nanotube 1000
Diamond 1220

@rauliruegas, I have a wonderful sounding phono stage, an ARC PH3 SE with super low noise tubes installed. It has two Sowter 1990 transformers installed which I can adjust for pretty much any moving coil cartridge. The Sowters have their own inputs and inside I installed another terminal strip which forms a bridge to the input stage. For high output cartridge use I just disconnect the terminal strip. 
I know you prefer SS phono stages but this is the most solid state sounding tube phono stage I have heard. It does have a FET input stage and it uses 6922 tubes which are no where near as colored as 12AX7s.

I am going to add either a current mode phono stage or a strain gauge
set up eventually. What are your feelings on this subject?

@terry9  : Again, assuming you are rigth ( no evidence about in this specific application. Facts. ) then all cartridge designers, not only JC, are wrong .

So, why don't try to prove them that they are wrong and must leave to use boron as material in their cantilever cartridge.

R.

mijostyn, you can try current mode but if your choice is a strain gauge one remember that this is a dedicated item for that cartridge.

Btw, years ago were a discussion thread talking about the SS strain gauge where , in those times, the unit does not conforms with the RIAA standard and the designer asaid that its unit in " natural " way conforms ( more or less. ) with the RIAA. There was proved that was not exactly true.

In that time the manufacturer posted on the SG : "" it was +/- 1dB from 50 Hz to 12K in "" ( a 2db swing. ) way out of RIAA standard. I don’t know it performs today in that regards.

I don’t know, today, for sure about.

R.

@rauliruegas 

They are not wrong, Raul. Boron and ruby are cheaper. Diamond is more expensive and harder to work.

mijostyn : I know that RIAA is for velocity sense transducer where the strain gauge is an amplitud transducer and in both designs exist trade-offs.

Exist several SG owners that are truly satisified with. Maybe you could try too.

R.

tery9 : You win, good. Nothing wrong with that.

R.

@rauliruegas , There are several who have said the SG leans to the bright side of things. It is an alluring concept. I had a Win Labs cartridge for about one month. It was awful, the worst cartridge I have ever owned.
Peter Ledermann is convinced it is his best cartridge. Both the SG and the current mode setup will cost about the same $9k, the current mode maybe a little more with a My Sonic Lab cartridge. 

Thank you, Raul.

Dear @mijostyn : The SG overall concept is just great and I think superior to the other kind of cartridge designs but exist a little problem and that's that the LPs comes with the RIAA eq. and SG does not follows that standard and exist frequency deviations from there.

As you know in audio everything has its own trade-offs and the SG is not an exception.

R.

@rauliruegas, yes, that is what is responsible for the brightness I think. That does not bother me so much as I can correct any frequency response problem. I would just store a target curve specifically for the cartridge. The Win was a very poor tracker for reasons I do not understand. Ledermann however insists that wear is so low (tracking so good) that you can play lacquer masters repeatedly without wear. 
For those reading this that do not know how a strain gauge cartridge works; a strain gauge is a small device that changes resistance with stress. If you send a regulated DC voltage through the strain gauge vibrations from the record will alter the resistance which then alters the voltage. The DC is then removed leaving a modulated AC signal representing the music. It is a more direct way of of creating the signal than waving a coil in front of a magnet or a magnet in front of a coil. There were two that I know of historically, The Win Labs and Panasonic had several models I believe. None of them did well here in the States.
Now Peter Ledermann has introduce another model which has reviewed well other than that brightness. I would like to see a comparison to the DS audio optical cartridge. 

@halcro I've just joined your nightmarish scenario. A cartridge with irreplacable cantilever, irreplacable stylus and irreplacable sound! I completely share your sentiments and I'm glad I followed your lead!

@jcarr & @dover,
I promised to be a good audiogon citizen and report on the Takai Lab Final MC, equipped with the Sony one piece diamond cantilever/stylus. So here goes:
It has been playing records these past two days in a way that is leaving an indelible impression on my ears and soul, while knowing  that each record played moves it closer to its inevitable 'end of cycle'. So I'm going to use it sparingly on non casual listening sessions with the best sounding records I have in house.
This will be really hard to do, as EVERY record sounds special with this device. Its sonic character can be described as warm and wide open at the same time, that most difficult of ying/yang balancing acts. Also special is the way it handles dynamic crescendo's, which blow up like a balloon in all directions and always with the feeling that it can get bigger yet. Which sure enough it does when the music calls for it. 
But the most extraordinary characteristic is the way it folows the musical argument and handles the inner voices, meaning all sorts of musical lines normally buried in the mix that are clear as day and easy to follow. One of my favorite pieces of music is Luciano Berio's Folk Songs, performed by Cathy Berberian and the Juilliard Ensemble conducted by the composer (on RCA UK pressing). The instruments jump up on you like 'African rabbits' (to quote Arthur Salvatore's phrase to describe scary real dynamic jumps of even the friendliest of instruments). It's these kinds of little epiphanies that glue you to the listening seat. Not using this cartridge constantly in an attempt to extend its lifespan will require restraint which will probably be good for character, but also a mild form of torture. But Halcro gave all the warning signals......

It's impossible to say if all of this can be attributed to the one piece diamond cantilever/stylus, but I know for a fact that none of my other cartridges can make this same kind of impression. Edge of the seat stuff indeed!

PS: my sincere  apologies for this interruption. Now the other folks can continue to go on off topic again about MM, MI, SG and all manner of subjects that have nothing whatsoever to do with diamond cantilevers.😱

Baaahhhh.... I read many hypotheses and theories that lead nowhere; but is it so important that it is a matter of life and death to know how important it is or not to have a diamond cantilever rather than anything else?
I have a cartridge with a diamond cantilever but I will not tear my hair or engage in grueling discussions if I had the cantilever in other less noble material.
More music and less mental masturbation would be of absolute importance.

best -groove, is is very difficult for many of us to audition these cartridges. We frequently have to make buying decisions based on our assessment of the technologies involve and on the opinion of others. These discussions can aid people in making decisions to buy or not buy a specific cartridge. There absolutely nothing vital about this hobby. There is nothing life or death here. So, if you do not want to get involved I'm absolutely sure it will not cause you any ill effect. There are other places you can talk about music. 

Once again, Halcro started this thread with the question ’who needs a diamond cantilever?’ He answers affirmative and so do I. If you don’t, good for you. Do whatever comes natural to you.

But I hope you don’t mind if I continue my ’mental masturbation’, a choice of words which does sound a teeny weeny little bit condescending, wouldn’t you agree?

Hi @edgewear:
>The auction ended yesterday at a smidgen under 200.000 JPY and I’m happy to disclose that my Japanese contact has won it!<

200,000 JPY is quite a bargain. Today Namiki-Adamant charges significantly more for their top diamond cantilever only (no cartridge included).

https://www.ad-na.com/en/product/jewel/product/shop_diamond_microridge.html

IOW you got a discount on the cantilever, and the cartridge for free! 😊

>The spec sheet of XL-44 (with 49mm distance) even claims that variations within that 2mm range don’t impact sound quality. I’ve also noticed that Ortofon is not too meticulous about observing the required 51mm collar to stylus distance for the SPU’s. I’m well aware this runs against the grain of the meticulous P2S alignment methods considered mandatory today, but in practice it does seem to work fine without audible distortion.<

>What are your thoughts about this?<

More than one vintage Japanese tonearm was designed without accurate calculations for horizontal tracking geometry (applies equally to Lofgren A, Lofgren B, or Stevenson). In some cases hitting the null points requires that the cartridge be twisted significantly in the headshell. When the cartridge cannot be twisted because it is housed in an integrated headshell, how important is precise overhang?

>As a good audiogon citizen I will report back when I have taken delivery of this Takai Lab Final MC.<

Looking forward to your initial impressions. Longer-term, I recommend that you try out a variety of setup approaches at your leisure until you can ferret out how to make it sing at its finest.

kind regards, jonathan

Dear Jonathan, thanks for your response. I agree I got a pretty good deal and the cartridge is in excellent condition and by visual inspection the stylus doesn't seem to have many hours on it.

My initial impressions are above, but I will certainly try all set up approaches to get the best out of it. It now sits at the end of an Audiocraft AC-4400, with the oil damping around 50%, VTA with the arm in horizontal position, VTF at 1,5 grams and loading impedance at 500 ohms. 

I would still like to hear from you what has been the reason of your decision never to use diamond as cantilever material. Just curious!

If I may, a question for Jonathan.
Some cartridge designers use super short cantilevers. As the stylus tracks the groove it moves in an arc. With a short cantilever this arc has a very small radius. Would this cause an inter channel  phase shift as the stylus rotates relative to the modulation on each wall ?
Cheers  

is is very difficult for many of us to audition these cartridges.

Get invited to the house of someone who has a head with a cantilevered diamond and you take away your curiosity.
Today airline tickets are very cheap, it is not impossible to make a trip to go and listen.

@edgewear 

I've just joined your nightmarish scenario. A cartridge with irreplacable cantilever, irreplacable stylus and irreplacable sound! I completely share your sentiments and I'm glad I followed your lead!

I'm so pleased for you my friend.... 👏
And I'll never forget your kindness in NOT bidding in the auction for my Sony XL-88D so that I would have a better chance.....

Your eloquent description of some of the feelings elicited by this stylus reinforces the spine-tingling excitement I also feel every time I switch from a different cartridge......
It's hard to describe and even harder to convey to others.....
YouTube videos are unable to capture all the qualities projected into the listening room.

There is one light at the end of the tunnel for our mutual 'conundrum'......
As we get older, the listening hours available to us are inevitably decreasing so that the 'value' proposition of listening to this cartridge rather than some of our other ones is increasing.....if you follow this logic? 🥴

The fact that this Thread inspired you to follow my lead into the 'abyss' is justification alone for my efforts...and if anyone else has profited from reading the contributions here, it may have saved the few remaining vintage cartridges like ours from lying dormant in some drawers...?

Happy listening @edgewear....💍 

Dear @halcro yes, I follow your logic. My ears sure aren't getting any better with aging and mild tinnitus for good measure. In fact I wasn't too sure I would be able to hear the things you had described. But thankfully I did and will make an effort to get the most out of it. While curiosity to discover new things is one of the human qualities that makes life interesting, this could very well be my 'final' cartridge.

Like you I have many cartridges, all with different strengths (and weaknesses). To give a few examples: for sheer tonal beauty there's Miyabi, for speed and explosive micro dynamics there's VdHul Colibri, for ballooning macro dynamic crescendo's there's Ikeda 9 Rex, for ultimate detail retrieval there's Transfiguration Proteus, etcetera. Obviously I haven't heard all the contenders and Lyra Atlas (or Olympos) is still on my 'must hear' list.

But so far none of these cartridges can do it ALL at the same time in the same self-evident manner as the Final/Sony. The way I see it, designers active today should make an effort to hear it and study it as a benchmark. Perhaps some current designs already have these same capabilities. If so, I'd like to hear (about) it.

Who need this?  Anyone who thinks diamonds have an intrinsic value, rather than just being something to sell to pepole with too much money, who do not know how much these trinkets are marked up... after the near-slave labor harvests them.

Dear @edgewear :  ""  what has been the reason of your decision never to use diamond as cantilever material. Just curious! ""

It's obvious that he has very good reasons not use that material in the cantilever.

He is a cartridge designer but it's not the only today cartridge designer and exist at least 5 of them that use that synthetic diamond in  some of their designs: Dynavector from the old times, Koetsu, ZYX that a little weird but today its top of the line series does not uses synthetic diamond but carbon cantilevers, Etsuro and Ortofon but this Denmark manufacturer choosed to use syntethic diamond after one century from was founded because never did it in the past and did it just for this way important anniversary ( the Anna too but is not usual with this company. ).

I think that JC can't post something about that could cause a controversy between he and his manufacturer colleagues. Btw, he already listened the 88D and even that .....! ?

Of course that we audiophiles want to know about,  more than" just curiosity ".

There are today several cartridge designers that for whatever reasons really don't " trust " in synthetic diamond for their top of the line cartridges: Lyra, Clearaudio, Denon ( never used that material. ), Audio Technica, My Sonic Lab, VdH, ZYX, Allaerts, Ikeda, Shelter, EMT,SoundSmith, Benz Micro, etc, etc.

In the old times very well regarded manufacturers neither use synthetic diamond: Accuphase, Audiocraft, Denon, Audio Note, Goldbug, FR, Technics,  and many others.

Btw and due that you are " collecting " that kind of cartridges you need to put your hands in the Highphonic D15 ( ex-Denon workers. ) and the Supex 1100D ( I owned the 1100 R that's really good performer . ).

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

You sound like you find yourself in a situation roughly analogous to that film by Pedro Almodovar where two lovers are in a rapturous embrace, then the female pulls out a knife, and as he climaxes, she stabs him under the theory that his act of dying keeps his climax going very very hard for the longest finite amount of time.

Is it something like that?

Please, pray tell …

FILE UNDER: the size of an audiophile’s speakers are in inverse proportion to the size of some of his other equipment.

Danvignau: exactly. 

@halcro @edgewear

The point of difference with the Final Audio/Sony XL88D cartridges are that the stylus and cantilever are cut from one diamond piece, there is no glue, no nude mounting.
As far as I am aware these are the only cartridges made with cantilever/stylus cut from one piece. According to Yoshihisha Mori his aim was to eliminate the glue joint, he believed most of the benefit of a diamond cantilever is lost if the stylus is glued.

@unreceivedogma, judging from your graphic description you must be the one enjoying ’mental masturbation’. Keep it up!

Ancjemò?

@dover 
I have no reason to doubt Mori San's instincts....
After all, there is a reason that both Edgewear and I are stunned by this cartridge 🤯
What I cannot for the life of me understand though, is why today.....in the 2020s....it is not a piece of 'cake' to emulate this one-piece synthetic diamond design???
If they could do this in the 1980s before CNC machines, 3D Printing and Computer-Controlled Lasers......we should be able to do this today.... better, faster and cheaper without even trying 🥳
Have you seen what they are doing with casting and machining synthetic sapphire crystal watch cases....? 🧐

As a side-note.....HERE is a Sony XL-88D that has just appeared for auction on Japan Yahoo.
Expect it to go for around 240,000 Yen 🤪

@halcro Yes, I’ve wondering about that too. Digital manufacturing technologies are readily available, but probably still too expensive for the audio ’industry’. I’m afraid our little hobby is too insignificant to use these. Unfortunately industrial powerhouses like Sony aren’t bothered by phono cartridges anymore. Too bad I guess. Ortofon does use modern 3D laser printing technology for the manufacture of their titanium ’body parts’. They would probably be the only company dedicated to phono catridges with the resources to do something similar with a cantilever/stylus.

@halcro 

If they could do this in the 1980s before CNC machines, 3D Printing and Computer-Controlled Lasers.

Just a correction - Namiki was using lasers to manufacture nude mounted styli in jewelled cantilevers back in the 80's I believe - for example the micro ridge/microscanner styli in sapphire cantilevers.

Last year I wiped out my Koetsu on my secondary turntable - rummaging through my parts bin I found a couple of Talisman S from the 80's. Interestingly one was mint original, the other had been retipped by Garrot Bros.
What blew me away was when cleaning them up and checking the stylus condition, the original, which had a nude mounted diamond in a sapphire cantilever, struck me as a work of art - both stylus and sapphire tube were as clear as crystal and there appeared to be no glue at all, the joint was seamless, and I could see straight through both the tube and stylus as if there were nothing there - if you have seen an xray of a pin embedded in a bone, thats what it looked like, except crystal clear.
When I look at the current price of moving coils - most dont have nude mounted styli until you get to the upper levels and there are some very expensive MC's out there with huge dobs of glue stuck on the end of the cantilever with a diamond embedded in the glue.

It does make you wonder how important what type of cartridge screws you use or how long you left the angels hair wire used in the coils in the sacred vat when all said and done the stylus, trying to the measure the microgroove vibrations, whilst generating humungous amount of friction, is mounted in glue.

I wonder if Namiki or whoever still makes cantilevers/styli are delivering to the standard that was being delivered back in the mid 80's. Our audio market is so miniscule in the scheme of things. 

@dover, all modern cartridges use nude styli except the very cheapest ones which still use a shank. I thick what you mean is mounted without glue? I get the same image when I look at the Soundsmith ruby cantilever and diamond. 
Modern adhesives dry to be extremely hard, just ask your dentist. There is an advantage to gluing the stylus to the end of the cantilever. Effective mass. You don not have to have extra cantilever at the end to hold the stylus. Diamond cantilevers have one major disadvantage.  They are very heavy  relative to boron which affects tracking and record wear. I think if you ask Peter Ledermann he would probably tell you that the extra mass was unacceptable. The stiffness of diamond can be matched by increasing the diameter of the boron cantilever a little still maintaining a weight advantage. The difference is like comparing a 200 lb individual with a 135 lb individual. Who do you think will win that boxing match? 

I wonder if Namiki or whoever still makes cantilevers/styli are delivering to the standard that was being delivered back in the mid 80’s. Our audio market is so miniscule in the scheme of things.

In analog era nearly all those exotic cantilevers were widely used in MM and MI design too, none of them used today even in astronomically priced MC. We’re in the digital era where analog is something exotic, for audiophiles it is also must be expensive by default (this is marketing). I think this is the main difference between 70s/80s and 2021.

However, some of those high quality cartridges were not cheap in the 70s/80s, but vinyl was the main media format for all. Industry made so many amazing cartridges back then so we could still buy them (NOS or almost unused).

When MM thread was so popular on audiogon many forgotten models were discovered by enthusiasts and audiophiles, the goal was the price vs. performance. 20 years ago with zero interest from the majority of audiophiles to vintage high-end MM or MC the prices were funny, almost nothing, something like $50-250 for amazing cartridges.

Some of those funny priced cartridges from the late 70’s - early 80s were deadstock (unused) samples with Berylliym, Ruby, Sapphire, Boron Pipe, Ceramic Pipe and even Diamond cantilevers. Always Nude Diamond and often the best profiles like MicroRidge, MicroLine, Parabolic ... you name it. Even aluminum cantilever was completely different from what the market can offer today. Same about tonearms from that era and turntables (imo).

For younger generation the only chance to buy something exceptionally good without paying too much is to study and learn what was the best and why! Next step is to find it in perfect condition. The process is interesting, but not for everyone.

The industry today will not offer anything close for affordable price, the industry will offer their best for their target audience - rich audiophiles (usually for insane price).

There are many superior things in those old designs comparing to the new in the same price category made today.

Superior sound quality, after all, is the reason why people like the OP and others still looking for the best from the past! And they can identify where is the real gem or total junk.

@mijostyn, I’m no expert in boxing, but if I’m not mistaken the heavier individual usually wins. This seems to be an argument pro higher mass, which runs contrary to your - uh - point.

It seems the less effective mass the better, which is probably the reason diamond cantilevers are kept very short to compensate its higher intrinsic mass, apart from possible cost considerations. But then again, all else equal the joint pipe then needs to be longer, which also adds weight. Some manufacturers of boron cantilevers use what appears to be a metal piece between it and the stylus (Transfiguration Proteus for example), which presumably adds weight as well. I think these are sourced from Ogura. I’ve also seen ruby and sapphire cantilevers made by Namiki that don’t have blobs of glue either. Instead you see a dark vertical shading of what appears to be hole in the mineral in which the stylus is slotted, probably with the help of a little adhesive.

Apart from the one piece assembly from Sony, the nicest solution I’ve seen is on Entré cartridges of the 80’s. Their EC-30 integrated headshell model has a fairly long boron cantilever with a V-shaped incision at the very end, in which a very small stylus tip nearly fits with one side of the stylus visible from the front view. There are no visible remnants of glue, so the bonding appears quite seamless. The same method is applied to the otherwise identical Soltair II, which has a very short oblique cut diamond (or perhaps sapphire, there's no information available) cantilever. I’ve never seen this construction anywhere else and don’t know who made them. I’ve even had my Japanese contact ask information from Matsudaira San at MSL, who designed these cartridges. Unfortunately it remains an unanswered question.

So there are many methods, each with their own merits and they all seem to work very well. As mentioned so many times, it’s the mixing and matching of all the parts that creates the final result. It seems that combinations are virtually endless and to me hearing these different results has become one of the most fascinating aspect of this hobby.

@mijostyn

I mean no glue.
The Soundsmith ruby cantilever looks like a toilet brush with crap on the end compared to the 1980's Sumiko Talisman S. There is no comparison - the Soundsmith is crude. Having said that I like the Soundsmith cartridges in general.

Check out the Soundsmith ruby cantilevers here and see the wads of glue supporting the diamond
https://www.sound-smith.com/options-cantilever-and-stylus-shapes

Now here check out the sapphire cantilever with microridge stylus
https://ad-na-shop-en.myshopify.com/products/サファイアカンチレバー-マイクロリッジ針

Even though the current Namiki sapphire cantilever/microridge stylus is a bit cleaner than the Soundsmith,  what I am saying is that the sapphire cantilever/microridge stylus in the Talsiman S from the 80's appears to be far higher quality than what is on offer today, and the mounting is much cleaner, even though it was made by Namiki back then. 

Maybe their current offering is a dumbed down version, I dont know. All I can see is that the 80's sapphire cantilevers with microridge styli as used by Sumiko at the time appear to be of a far higher quality than what is on offer today. I wish I had the tools to photograph the Talisman stylus - you would be shocked.

if diamond is square and hole is round you have to use glue.
if you are drilling with laser hole usually it's round

if you are drilling with laser hole usually it’s round

I don’t think so.

This is a proper construction of of Boron Pipe cantilever and Nude Stylus assemble.

A tip mounting hole made using a laser beam. This is pretty much the same that another Japanese company made with Grace LEVEL II but with at least one serious advantage over the Technics. The difference is the type of the low mass stylus tip. When you comparing Elliptical with MicroRidge you know that Elliptical simply can’t win. Furthermore, type of the cantilever and the whole moving mass is very important according to this Technics research: "Somewhere in the high frequencies, every cartridge has an undesirable resonance point. Undesirable because there the frequency response curve climbs a sudden peak. If that peak is in the audible range, your records sound not as intended. That resonance frequency is determined by the total effective moving mass of the vibrating system - the summed masses of the diamond stylus and, most importantly, the cantilever and magnet, etc. To shift that harmful resonance frequency up into the high supersonics, the effective moving mass must be reduced to the lowest possible minimum. Also, too much effective moving mass increases the mechanical impedance, thereby negatively affecting the cartridge’s tracing ability." Cartridges i am talking about are both have very low moving mass and similar exotic hollow pipe cantilevers. But Grace LEVEL II has much better suspension/damper compared to Technics mk4 (100 or 205 series). Also much better LC-OFC coil wire utilized in LEVEL II model, this is RUBY EXP model.

This is Sapphire Astrion cantilever of ADC.
This is Beryllium cantilever of Victor X1II.
This is Titanium Pipe of Victor X1IIE
This is Boron Pipe of Technics 205c mk4
This is RUBY cantilever of Dynavector
This is Diamond cantilever of Dynavector

Check my linked files before they are gone.

All images taken by myself using my own carts.

The way the vintage cantilever and stylus mounted together is different from almost anything new.

Edgewear clearly has no sense of humor, and just as clearly had not seen the film.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matador_(film)

“While Eva is telling the detective what she has heard, Ángel’s psychiatrist (Carmen Maura) calls the detective to tell him that Ángel has seen Diego and María in a vertigo trance, and that they are in danger. Ángel is able to guide them to María’s house. Just as the police, Ángel, Eva, and the psychiatrist arrive, an eclipse begins and they hear a gunshot. María has stabbed Diego between the shoulder blades and shot herself in the mouth as they were making love. Viewing the scene, the detective says that it is better this way and that he has never seen anyone happier.”

Chakster it's funny but the biggest blob of glue is on Technics.
With laser it's possible to inscribe Chakster on diamond tip.
Although it's question of money and time. Who'll pay for that?

After all, there is a reason that both Edgewear and I are stunned by this cartridge

what good is that sphere-like pretuberance located near the cantilever?

Chakster it's funny but the biggest blob of glue is on Technics.

This is re-tipped boron rod and this is genuine boron pipe. 
The Technics original stylus is the tallest one 

The way the vintage cantilever and stylus mounted together is different from almost anything new.

Not sure what you are getting to on this but here are Namiki's current offerings.  The retipped boron cantilever you refer to looks suspiciously close to stock.

dave

Dave, current Boron ROD and vintage Boron PIPE are completely different things. You’re right that re-tipped version is new, but original version is Boron Pipe (hollow pipe with laser mounted tip through the pipe). Boron PIPE no longer available, just like Beryllium (no longer available). Those two are common versions used for the best cartridges in the past, but not today! Read Dover's post.