Can you actually hear the differences between cantilever materials....?That's a question some have asked me.
My answer.......I'm not sure 🤔
The reason I'm regularly asked this question is because I've often written that I prefer Beryllium to all other materials.
This is no accident.....
Over the last 42 years....but particularly the past 15....I have discovered that the majority of the 80+ cartridges (I have owned and heard in my system) that I LOVE.....seem to share Beryllium as their only common feature.
On the other hand.....the cartridges that disappoint me the most, seem to share Boron as their only common feature.
Aluminium cantilevers sound fine as do Sapphire and Ruby.
Recently I discovered that the diamond cantilever on my Sony XL-88D sounds stunning, but there is a 'Control Group' of only one for any meaningful conclusions on this material 💍
This seems to indicate that I can certainly hear the differences in cantilever materials......
But that's not true 🤥
There's no way I can hear the differences in side-by-side A-B Tests and I've written on THAT
So it seems like most things in High-End Audio.....only long-term listening can be relied on, to separate the 'wheat from the chaff' 👂
But as this Thread had regularly demonstrated....I don't have the 'Golden Ears' of other Posters and so I thought:-
Why not see if ANYONE can hear what must be, exceedingly minute and subtle differences.
Especially with the quality limitations of YouTube audio....?
I have an original SAS/Boron Stylus for my 35 year-old Garrott P77 MM Cartridge as well as the NeoSAS/Sapphire and NeoSAS/Ruby
BORON CANTILEVER
SAPPHIRE CANTILEVER
RUBY CANTILEVER
And for those (like Frogman) who can't get by without their daily dose of Prokofiev......
BORON CANTILEVER
SAPPHIRE CANTILEVER
RUBY CANTILEVER