Benefit of stylus shapes, measured?

[Thomas_A]

Compared to the spherical. Accuracy in assembly aside, do you think polishing the stylus to ML would cost 100 bucks each?

In regard to the fricatives test, if my recollection doesn‘t trick me, I wasn’t impressed by either of the specimen. I‘ll listen again, and may decide for the ML with real money

What do we hear, actually—is it subharmonics or harmonic distortion? I‘ve got a testrecord that has bandlimited noise at 10kHz. I hear the problem clearly, but it must be below the 10k (tested w/ cutting the bandwidth by equalizer). If that is real, the distortion is subharmonic, and not originated in the ‚ball failing to follow the wave‘. The stylus is losing track in leaving the groove, not just misreading it. And that would not be (directly) related to stylus shape, me assumes.

add on ‚directly‘: the wider stylus undergoes harder accelerations when it gets pinched (if that is a word), which it might not follow

You should listen the fricatives made into mono

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

It is quite clear what the distortion is about.

 

[MoreWatts]

do you think polishing the stylus to ML would cost 100 bucks each?

Stylus tips are bought in bulk from manufacturers, and then bonded to the cantilever in various ways.

Here's a link to a Japanese manufacturer that supplies all the various phono cartridge tip shapes, with specifications. You will have to contact them for pricing. https://orbray.com/en/product/jewel/product/stylus.html

Years ago I followed a link to AliExpress (iirc), where you could buy bags of 100 in the various shapes for ridiculously low prices. I can't seem to find those now, but I found the Japanese manufacturer today.

 

[sergeauckland]

Expert Stylus in the UK grind their own stylii. https://www.expertstylus.co.uk/
Their 'Paratrace' stylus has a line-contact profile similar to Van den hul, Shibata and several others.
Their charges for a cartridge examination and fitting a replacement stylus are certainly competitive against the manufacturer's price, even assuming they still offer such a service.

I wonder whether JICO are somehow connected to Orbray above, especially with their SAS stylus.

S.

 

[JP]

SAS is an MR.

 

[JP]

I get your valid points, thanks. The “ball tracking a wave” concept makes sense as long as the groove walls are assumed to be rigid — which they aren’t. The cutting process isn’t perfectly linear either; the stylus moves in a rotational path rather than a straight line, though that’s probably a minor effect.

Just for completeness: there were once attempts to compensate for these distortions using a feedforward approach, such as RCA’s Dynagroove. From what I’ve read, this only worked for spherical styli, not for elliptical ones — so I wonder: if the distortions of E types are unpredictable, how can anyone define the advantage?

What I’ve learned so far: excellent cartridges tend to have very sharp stylus profiles. All top-tier cartridges use some kind of specialized stylus shape. However, not all “sharp” designs perform equally well.

My conclusion: excellent cartridges always feature MR/ML (MicroRidge/MicroLine) or similar profiles, but not all cartridges with MR/ML tips are excellent.

From a practical customer perspective, I still have to pay for the MR/ML “mystery” regardless. They might oversell the benefit, but what choice do I have?

What’s still unclear:

• Why is the cost of MR/ML types so much higher? If it’s just for the stylus, that feels like a rip-off.
• Why do quite many MR/ML cartridges perform only mediocre at best?
• Shure claimed the advantage of elliptical over conical wasn’t that huge (a few percent) — yet the measured differences among some cartridges suggest otherwise.
• Are there MC pickups that perform as well as the AT VM95ML (the “E” type isn’t bad either) or the Shure V15/MR?
• Why has the topic of stylus shape remained obscure for decades? No direct proof, no controlled tests where only the shape changes under identical conditions.

And not the least: who guarantees that the sharper stylus is mounted properly — into the cantilever, into the cartridge body, and aligned on the platter? What about record warp?

I think you need to read more. A lot more. From recollection, Dynagroove only worked for spherical as they were "pre-distorting" to mitigate the tracing error of that profile. It's a rather specific thing for rather obvious reasons, and the far better solve were advanced stylus profiles.

In general the rest of your post seems to be a bit illogical. An advanced tip does no more to guarantee the performance of the rest of your cartridge than does putting higher performance tires on a Yugo. It can only solve what it was designed to solve within the scope of its application.

 

[mike70]

This guy comes from other topics when we said we made many abx tests with conclusive results only changing the styluses (not changing cartridges / cantilevers, that's is a wrong test). There're other sighted tests in YouTube, certainly and blinded ones (

)


But, he repeats til the end of the world the "pseudo scientific mantras" he posted again here.

I bet nobody will change their mind, he's only searching for confirmation bias. Maybe I'm wrong, you'll see it anyway.

 

[GuidoK]

Compared to the spherical. Accuracy in assembly aside, do you think polishing the stylus to ML would cost 100 bucks each?

Yes.
Bonded conical and bonded elliptical are made with a very simple process where the stylus before grinding is also much easier to hold (it's sintered on a wire). The simple elliptical only requires a simple grinding spot at the front and one at the rear. Also mounting the bonded stylii into calipers goes by robot (as seen in the video's at ortofon for example). However I have a feeling that all nude stylii are mounted by hand; ortofon doesn't mount any of the nude stylii themselves, so they buy them on cantilever.

In regard to the fricatives test, if my recollection doesn‘t trick me, I wasn’t impressed by either of the specimen. I‘ll listen again, and may decide for the ML with real money

Really?!? you don't hear the miles and miles of difference between how the bonded conical and bonded elliptical trace those tracks and a ML?
I could hear the difference totally drunk and through a door. In fact, its the biggest difference I've ever heard between cartridges, far far bigger than differences between MM and MC or between different brands but with same construction etc etc.
And there's also another thing: I've posted these (and similar files) on lots and lots of forums in various topics, and all the reactions are that the ones that show more IGD also sound worse.
There was no one that said: "oh I prefer that sample with all the IGD"...
So the different sound that IGD causes is always regarded as ugly, and that isn't the case for other tests that show other differences. Lots of types of distortion, like from a high capacitance cable or differences in frequency responses can be percepted as bad by one person but good by the other person, but with IGD, that's just never the case.
There's (within turntable playback) just one other form of distortion that is percieved the same way, and that is wow/flutter. Once above a certain threshold (say 0,3% or so), when it becomes audible (that differs from music to musicstyle) it's also always percieved as ugly.
So stylus/cartridgewise, the prevention of IGD in my book is the most important thing to focus on. The rest is of lesser importance and often can also be corrected with some light eq'ing or so. IGD you can't correct in post processing, at least not that I know of.

What do we hear, actually—is it subharmonics or harmonic distortion?

I don't think IGD is harmonic related. I don't know what you mean with subharmonics, but if you mean does the distorted amplitude manifest itself as a frequency lower than double the played frequency, then for sure yes. I'm pretty sure I can't hear double the frequency of an 'S' sound (if I were to guess: around 8-10khz)

 

[GuidoK]

Stylus tips are bought in bulk from manufacturers, and then bonded to the cantilever in various ways.

You will have to contact them for pricing. https://orbray.com/en/product/jewel/product/stylus.html

Orbray has prices on their website in their online shop for ML and Shibata on various cantilevers:

ON-LINE shop [ Analog Record - related Products] | Orbray Co., Ltd.

Obviously big manufacturers have special deals. I assume that the very low pricing of ML stylii at AT comes from that. They just made a cracking deal with Orbray, maybe to promote the ML stylus and expand it's market share (if so, they're doing a good job), as fact is that an ML stylus on a cartridge is 2-3 times as cheap at AT than it is at other mainstream brands of cartridge manufacturers.

 

[JP]

Really?!? you don't hear the miles and miles of difference between how the bonded conical and bonded elliptical trace those tracks and a ML?

He may be making the mistake of thinking that a performant stylus is going to track it perfectly, which misses the point of the test.

 

[GuidoK]

He may be making the mistake of thinking that a performant stylus is going to track it perfectly, which misses the point of the test.

Ah yes I understand your view. But indeed that would be a strange way to think though...
It wouldn't be much of a test if a $150 cartridge could play it 100% and that there would never be any possibility to make a comparison with even (supposedly) higher specced stylus tips (replicant 100 would be interesting to hear on that track I think)

Like pretty much all good tests on test records, it's purpose is to grade different setups to eachother, not to show how beautiful something can sound.

I wonder if that is a common train of thoughts, because I seem to remember someone in that topic on AK where you posted those files a person said that the testtrack was wrong because none of the stylii could play it perfectly...I remember thinking back then too what a strange way of reasoning...

 

[Heinrich]

I think you need to read more. A lot more. …

… a truckload more, as they say. Nope, my original question was, if there was measurement data that confirms the general superiority of certain stylus shapes. After a bit of back and forth I personally concluded, that the ‚library‘ on this board would only tell: the excellent cartridges are all equipped with parabolic shapes, but such a shape would not even statistically grant a better performance. That‘s a subtle take on the observation, and it is valid.

I would sort the measurements in three clusters. No non-parabolic stylus is better than mediocre, with the exception of VM95 elliptical, nearly all parabolic are mediocre, There are only two that shine, Shure V15 and AT VM95. Sidenote: there is no MC that I found to be right out excellent.

All the reading on theories is inconclusive. It lacks analytical depth by far, even if combined. Despite the marketing fuss no real data is available.

Then we came to the ‚fricatives‘ test with a certain test record. Again, thanks for publishing it. What you accuse me of is exactly what I said. None of the cartridges performed as if a problem was resolved.

It is not illogical to scrutinize the nature of the remaining problem. It is not about regular overtones aka harmonic distortion as it is predicted by the ‚ball following a wave‘ model. Instead, most of the distortion product seems to be located below(!!) the driving frequency (10kHz bandwidth limited random noise in my case). That‘s typical for chaotic systems. And what else would one expect from a system of multi-dimensional composition, having internal feedback loops in parameters influencing each other, and shows 10% HD ++ to begin with.

My hypothesis was then, only to say something, that a wider conical stylus would, due to pinching, be forced harder to vast accelerations, which it might not follow. But it partly leaves the groove. It may lean on one side only, jumping over the modulation on the other side of the groove for a little. That would explain the subharmonic nature of the byproducts.

On first glance the parabolics appear to be favorable, because those avoid the pinching by a bigger margin. But it also tells, that it‘s not directly the shape, but insufficient tracking force. Low compliance of the cantilever, higher tracking force, combined with low effective mass of the needle, combined with a heavy tonearm might help.

Fun fact: even Noble laudats like Einstein, Klein, Sommerfeld failed miserably when they tried to explain how a bicycle works— really. We are not that dumb, right?

 

[dlaloum]

I get your valid points, thanks. The “ball tracking a wave” concept makes sense as long as the groove walls are assumed to be rigid — which they aren’t. The cutting process isn’t perfectly linear either; the stylus moves in a rotational path rather than a straight line, though that’s probably a minor effect.

Just for completeness: there were once attempts to compensate for these distortions using a feedforward approach, such as RCA’s Dynagroove. From what I’ve read, this only worked for spherical styli, not for elliptical ones — so I wonder: if the distortions of E types are unpredictable, how can anyone define the advantage?

What I’ve learned so far: excellent cartridges tend to have very sharp stylus profiles. All top-tier cartridges use some kind of specialized stylus shape. However, not all “sharp” designs perform equally well.

My conclusion: excellent cartridges always feature MR/ML (MicroRidge/MicroLine) or similar profiles, but not all cartridges with MR/ML tips are excellent.

From a practical customer perspective, I still have to pay for the MR/ML “mystery” regardless. They might oversell the benefit, but what choice do I have?

What’s still unclear:

• Why is the cost of MR/ML types so much higher? If it’s just for the stylus, that feels like a rip-off.
• Why do quite many MR/ML cartridges perform only mediocre at best?
• Shure claimed the advantage of elliptical over conical wasn’t that huge (a few percent) — yet the measured differences among some cartridges suggest otherwise.
• Are there MC pickups that perform as well as the AT VM95ML (the “E” type isn’t bad either) or the Shure V15/MR?
• Why has the topic of stylus shape remained obscure for decades? No direct proof, no controlled tests where only the shape changes under identical conditions.

And not the least: who guarantees that the sharper stylus is mounted properly — into the cantilever, into the cartridge body, and aligned on the platter? What about record warp?

Keep in mind that there are elipticals and then there are elipticals... some of the 0.2mil elipticals that were at the premium end of the market, were on a par with line contact designs (their weakness was that the vertical length of the point of contact was still limited) - their contact patch horizontal width was on a par with the ML type designs....

All of the styli are theoretically modelable - but there were (and are) very few standards in the market! - the Sphericals were a (limited) standard - and even there there were (and are) different diameter sphericals.... but with differing elipticals, and hyper-elipticals confusing the matter (the HE types are a semi line contact design - but have in the past been sold as a premium eliptical) - there really wasn't a "standard" to be worked with.

In the line contact world there were the early complex "pyramid" stylus designs, as well as HE, Shibata, MicroLine and FritzGeiger.... pretty much the same cast we have today - if you really wanted to model them fully, including vinyl elasticity etc... - then all of these behave differently.

However, I would hazard a guess that you would not need to model them fully, to have a functioning model and that the Vinyl elasticity would be a minor factor...

 

[GuidoK]

Then we came to the ‚fricatives‘ test with a certain test record.

No, not just with a certain test record. I let you hear the igd difference with the best selling record of all times. (if I have to believe wikipedia and a few other resources; obviously I haven't counted them personally...)

 

[dlaloum]

Stylus tips are bought in bulk from manufacturers, and then bonded to the cantilever in various ways.

View attachment 494024

Here's a link to a Japanese manufacturer that supplies all the various phono cartridge tip shapes, with specifications. You will have to contact them for pricing. https://orbray.com/en/product/jewel/product/stylus.html

Years ago I followed a link to AliExpress (iirc), where you could buy bags of 100 in the various shapes for ridiculously low prices. I can't seem to find those now, but I found the Japanese manufacturer today.

The real cost is in the manual labour to mount them to cantilevers... the more extreme the profile, the more precise the mounting needs to be (and presumably the more rejects there would be as a result!)

A slightly misaligned conical/spherical probably won't be noticed in performance terms - a misaligned ML will definitely impact on performance...
The margins of error are very very different between the two ends of the spectrum!

 

[ElectricWarrior]

Compared to the spherical. Accuracy in assembly aside, do you think polishing the stylus to ML would cost 100 bucks each?

Of course not. The difference in manufacturing/machinging cost for the stylus manufacturer must be significantly smaller. But then they have to have a markup to earn money. The cartridge manufacturer has a markup and will have to make money and the dealer also has a markup and will have to make money.

Bear in mind also.

Figures from AT state that the lifetime of the micro line stylus is double that of the conical, and three times that of the elliptical (figures for the VM95 xx). This effectivly halves the cost of the micro line stylus compared with the conical.

So the comparison would be (current amazon prices)

Conical.
£19 cf £64 (128/2)

Eliptical
£26 cf £42.5 (128/3)


The value proposition changes somewhat both based on performance and, especially, when you consider reduced wear on your valuable vinyl collection.

A better comparison would be microline and nude elliptical. The nude elliptical is currently £89.

A slightly misaligned conical/spherical probably won't be noticed in performance terms - a misaligned ML will definitely impact on performance...
The margins of error are very very different between the two ends of the spectrum!

A microline is very forgiving. A slightly misaligned elliptical will produce very noticeable distortion that I have never been able to get with a ml—I wonder what causes this. It can’t be tracking distortion, as that is the same for all stylus types.
Also, a ML has a major radius that will give you a good tolerance for azimuth.

 

[JP]

… a truckload more, as they say. Nope, my original question was, if there was measurement data that confirms the general superiority of certain stylus shapes. After a bit of back and forth I personally concluded, that the ‚library‘ on this board would only tell: the excellent cartridges are all equipped with parabolic shapes, but such a shape would not even statistically grant a better performance. That‘s a subtle take on the observation, and it is valid.

I would sort the measurements in three clusters. No non-parabolic stylus is better than mediocre, with the exception of VM95 elliptical, nearly all parabolic are mediocre, There are only two that shine, Shure V15 and AT VM95. Sidenote: there is no MC that I found to be right out excellent.

All the reading on theories is inconclusive. It lacks analytical depth by far, even if combined. Despite the marketing fuss no real data is available.

Then we came to the ‚fricatives‘ test with a certain test record. Again, thanks for publishing it. What you accuse me of is exactly what I said. None of the cartridges performed as if a problem was resolved.

It is not illogical to scrutinize the nature of the remaining problem. It is not about regular overtones aka harmonic distortion as it is predicted by the ‚ball following a wave‘ model. Instead, most of the distortion product seems to be located below(!!) the driving frequency (10kHz bandwidth limited random noise in my case). That‘s typical for chaotic systems. And what else would one expect from a system of multi-dimensional composition, having internal feedback loops in parameters influencing each other, and shows 10% HD ++ to begin with.

My hypothesis was then, only to say something, that a wider conical stylus would, due to pinching, be forced harder to vast accelerations, which it might not follow. But it partly leaves the groove. It may lean on one side only, jumping over the modulation on the other side of the groove for a little. That would explain the subharmonic nature of the byproducts.

On first glance the parabolics appear to be favorable, because those avoid the pinching by a bigger margin. But it also tells, that it‘s not directly the shape, but insufficient tracking force. Low compliance of the cantilever, higher tracking force, combined with low effective mass of the needle, combined with a heavy tonearm might help.

Fun fact: even Noble laudats like Einstein, Klein, Sommerfeld failed miserably when they tried to explain how a bicycle works— really. We are not that dumb, right?

You continue to lump some truths, half-truths, and outright misconceptions in to a single category and assign it to the stylus.

 

[Heinrich]

You continue to lump some truths, half-truths, and outright misconceptions in to a single category and assign it to the stylus.

Lol, the experts will know what you are referring to, me not. I stand to my summary above post #31, and also to my initial question: where’s some real first-hand data?

 

[JP]

You've been given plenty of info to educate yourself, which is entirely up to you, as is the choice to remain ignorant.

 

[Soniclife]

as is the choice to remain ignorant

That's not a choice for all of us .