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JICO and LP Gear Stylus question

I am looking at a JICO shibata or LP Gear Vivid line stylus for a Stanton 680 body. Does anyone know if these are nude or bonded diamonds? Jico has a series of replacments that rise in price going from 681E, 681EE and 681EEE and the shibata for the 681-S, I emailed them asking the difference and I believe they thought I asked about the 881 and they said all diamonds the same except for the Shibata of course. Not enough info on either website.
128x128waltroman
gp49
52 posts
 
NOT reassuring is this photo of a brand new Jico SAS VN35HE for the Shure V-15 III XM. The user says this is with zero hours; the stylus had not played a single record when the photo was taken. The workmanship is shockingly bad: it's a GLUE BALL!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7055/6866177643_69b2f2be3e.jpg

Also look at the last post in this Audiogon thread (apparently yet another Jico Glue Ball.:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1241395046&read&keyw&zzjico=sas

And this series of photos...the Jico doesn't come off well in this comparison:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1241395046&read&keyw&zzjico=sas
vinyladdict
164 posts
 
Such a shame. This was once one of the best values in analog to my ears. I hate that they've allowed their once stellar QC and product slip to such low levels.
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