Anyone have an opinion, Jico SAS stylus?

The Shure V-15 series is highly overrated, and the Series Type III with the JICO SAS stylus replacement is abominable. If I were you, I would send me a private email right away and let me take any V-15 you have off your hands.

J/K

Dave

Dave,

Thirty to fifty years ago engineers at Shure, Stanton, Ortofon, Dual, Garrard, Thorens and the like simply didn't understand what makes for great vinyl lp reproduction like "we" do now.

Get over it and move on ;)

If you can spend a bit more, the Soundsmith retip is an alternative.

There is a thread on Audiogon somewhere about this.

I recieved the SAS stylus for my V15-111 two days ago and am hugely pleased with the performance. The sense of grainy midrange was corrected by the addition of a line/power conditioner. A remarkable improvment in texture was observed before the new stylus was installed.
The JICO replacement offers several differences from either the stock stylus or the Saunders elliptical. The cantilever is (Thanks Mark) a boron tube bonded to the inside of an aluminum section. It is supported by a rubber damper at the end of a tensioning holder which appears to be a rigid foam which fills the sleeve. Through this holder a suspension wire restrains the cantilever from longitudinal movement. Detected resonance, to my ears, is nonexistant.
The stylus itself is radiused on both sides, front and back, leaving a razor thin portion across its width in contact with the groove. It also seats very snugly into the cartridge body. I needed to remove the arm wand to confirm it was properly installed.
On inital playback (Alan Parsons, "I, Robot") clarity in the upper registers was immediately apparent, but I didn't find the same presence in the bass response. Within two hours of playing time the suspension loosend up and tonality became integrated across the entire range.
The recordings I use to check alignment are Steely Dan "Babylon Sisters" (shake it), first track. No sibilance. Santana "Abraxas", sustained guitar note two minutes into "Incident at Nashabur", no distortion, and side two of Vangelis "Chariots of Fire" where halfway through, single notes of multiple insturments played forte can blow the stylus out of the groove if VTF is incorrect.
In the seventh measure of Babylon Sisters, I actually looked for the triangle when it was struck on the first count, the presence was startling.
I cannot support this, but I do have the feeling that this is appropriate for low mass/high compliance applications only, I have visions of vinyl curly fries on the record from the tiny stylus at high tracking force. If the SAS stylus will do for my AKG P8E what it has done for the Shure, I'll have another on order soon. Please keep in mind I don't pretend to be qualified to review, these are only my impressions.

I replaced a recently broken in M97xe stylus, which I heard is a big deal with the 97xe, with the Jico S.A.S. today. The first albums I played were Fleetwood mac and Steely Dan's greatest hits, I was in love with it! It blew the stock Shure needle away. Then I played some albums that a bit worn and some poorly produced albums and I was a little bummed. With good albums the sas is GREAT, with poorly produced or worn albums it seems to be little or no improvement. As with all audio equipment the better it is the cleaner it is, if you put shit in you get shit out. You can't polish a turd. Overall I play albums that are in good shape and well produced, so I would buy the SAS again in a second.
Hope this helped.