Every Styli known to man

[daiwok]

Some of the BBQ came from US that I know of  My Supratek phono can take carts from 0.1mV to 5mV and its all tube so I guess plenty of gain here  The MIDAS upgrade is not about the Denon Motor but may be a JA stylus and cantilever vs the Sapphire cantilever and paratrace stylus 

[krenzler]

http://www.vinylengine.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22894

[daiwok]

http://www.vinylengine.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22894

thanks Kim, great link !  

Interesting to see that the vinyl engine thread started 2 weeks after this one

[richard]

Flavio has produced a masterpiece from Peru!

I need to spend some time absorbing his data and findings. I regard phonograph records as documents (even the lousy ones, although I prefer jazz and classics).  So, my foremost concern is not how these tips sound, but how safe they are to the records: "First, do no harm."

As an engineer at Stanton once said to me, "We don't want to get so close to the cutting stylus that we re-cut the record." So, playback styli must be different from cutting tips.

Two related concerns are affordability and practicality. I submit that there is no such thing as the One True Perfect Stylus: life is too intricate for that. Records are different from one another, especially from one record company to another and from one year to another. The perfect stylus for Record A won't be the same as that for Record B.

So, if we're going to hear the maximum and the quietest sound from our records, it can be advantageous to come up with a minimum list of stylu that'll take care of our musical needs.

[hatehifi]

Been doing some time-off catching up on LH and thanks to Kim for the heads up and you, of course Richard for the never ending insight.

d the g, Doug pointed (no pun intended) out to me that my 'back-up' MC (Lyra Lydian - the original, with green body) uses the Ogura stylus profile. Have no idea whether this is good or bad. And can't say whether the cart is 'great' or not. Frank Schroeder mentioned his respecting its 'neutrality' (and his personal liking) of it so I bought one 2nd hand when it happened upon me. Still yet to seriously audition.

'What' is Ogura stylus profile?

[richard]

Hatehifi wrote,

"What' is Ogura stylus profile?"

I don't have a complete answer for you. It's been a bit of a mystery to me. I have a number of aftermarket styli that have three different tip types: parabolic, .2 x .7 elliptical, and conical. I'm pretty sure that these were made by Ogura, but not 100% because the stylus company, after putting out products clearly linked to Ogura, with the parabolics claimed to be "Shibata-type," then changed their stock numbers. These are fine performers, with integrated tip/cantilever assemblies assembled into elastomers and finger grips. They stopped using the word "Shibata" and changed to "parabolic." As is so often the case with aftermarket needle companies, they didn't print anything on the finger grips, so there's no way to tell the fine points without an appropriate microscope. The needle company was bought by someone in my location, Oakland, California at the time. So, I dropped in a few times to chat with the owner. He told me that he'd bought the Shibata patent (a fishy story!), but never claimed that his own parabolics had Shibata tips. And, unfortunately, these Walcos were severely compromised by having oversized mounting tubes. And this required me to have extra "sacrificial" cartridge bodies.

From what I an tell, Ogura's needle is a variation on the parabolic shape, since there are many ways in which a parabolic stylus can be tweaked and still meet an ordinary size specificaton. I think that in the real world, these variations all perform pretty much the same way.

[hatehifi]

Again, thanks Richard. Off-hand, the only 'Shibata' I had (or knew I had) was the AT 20SLA (2x) which I found marvelous back 'then'. FWIW: correction: VdHul likely falls into this slot and I had 2x Sumiko BPS VdHuls and a short try with his Frog but wasn't happy with it really and I assume Clearaudio also follows. Meanwhile I have a PitBull sleeping next to my [ Zzzzz ] Denon DL103R.

[richard]

When I consider which tip for my main "all-purpose" stylus, critical factors are:

- Does the tip accentuate surface noise or quiet it?
- Does the tip degrade the record grooves in order to improve resolution of frequencies that are not on the record?
- How does it sound?

I divide the parabolics in to two groups that I call "first" and "second" generations. Within these groups are such types as the Van de Huls, Shibatas, SAS, and the nice super-duper needle from Expert Stylus (only available as a re-tip). I think of these as being in a special class that have compound or asymmetrical shapes.

One can get too carried away with these because not all stereo records were cut the same way! So, in order to avoid going crazy, it can be good to standardize on one stylus that'll do a nice job with all the stereos. Same with the monos. Cartridge/stylus makers sometimes advertised that their own parabolic needle would improve the playback of all microgroove records. I disagree! There's also the issue or buying records in the thrift shops and then finding that at a certain groove height, they've been trashed by "wood chisels." So, certain tip sizes can help ride above or below those damages and deliver very nice sound.

So, as an alternative to the parabolics, I find that a .5 mil conical tip can be nice to listen to. There's a lot to this, but knowing as much as I do, it's also good to just keep sane with it.