Every Styli known to man

[daiwok]

Right, this is a topic which I think needs covering and we have enough Experts here I guess  Can we start a list of different Styli profiles and names and sizes ? diagrams and illustrations would be great as well as it seems information available is so limited. I hoping that this thread will give most us a good insight in what we have or what we want.

For example



more from this link

http://www.export-japan.com/marketing/stylus/index.php

[jloveys]

OK, David, I start...

               

Just in case. 
Now I check for the good ones.

Jean.

[jloveys]

[jloveys]

[richard]

Jloveys,

That's a nice chart. Who put it out?
David, I'll contribute a few pointers:

- About the diagrams shown here, we're pretty much OK about the conical and elliptical shapes and sizes. They're easy to grasp in the mind.

- We need a conceptual name for the advanced (complex) shapes. This is why I've repeatedly called them Parabolics. They are all either parabolic or variations of parabolic. This is the general shape of the bearing radii. I other words, seen end-on, it looks like a medieval shield.

- Some manufacturers have used their own names for the advanced shapes (those I call "parabolics"). For example, Shure used the words "Hyper-Elliptical" (and more); Stanton/Pickering had "Stereohedron" and "Stereohedron II." (Trademarks). Some of these shapes were distinctly proprietary and patented (as were the Stantons). van den Hul's and Shibata's, of course, were/are propretary. There are more.

I divide the parabolics into two periods that I call "First generation" and "Second generation."

- People who have made either advertising drawings or general illustrations (as in the drawings that we have here so far) often mis-name designs or omit some. For example, "line contact" is generally accepted to mean what I call "second-generation parabolics," certainly not parabolics in general.  The type shown in the picture as "Micro Linear" is what I'd call, generally, "2nd generation parabolic," or "line contact."

- In general, the second generation parabolics contact the groove with a sharper radius. Using the Stereohedrons as examples, the original Stereohedron's tracing radius is .3 mils; the Stereohedron II's tracing radius is .2 mils. The Stereohedron II's bearing radius is gentler and taller, distributing the tracking force over a wider area, thus compensating groove wear for the narrower contact points.

The first matter of concern is our records: our "software." A stylus that sounds better than anything else but chews up the records isn't something that we'd want. Advanced stylus shapes differ from each other in how the designers addressed the balance between sound accuracy and record wear. Ease and cost of manufacturing is part of the picture, too.

And, finally, there's the question, how will the particular design treat the records during the whole duration of its lifetime? What shapes will a certain needle wear into as it's used? I certainly don't have answers to all of these concerns.

[daiwok]

Great input Jean and Richard.

The reason for the thread is not only understand more about the range of styli's on the market but also understand what is what. For example, I know Soundsmith have a "Nude Contact Line" and Nagaoka have a "Super Fine Line Contact".

Is Line contact a profile ? of a generic name for a technical specification ?

[andy]

Richard, you've got me rolling all over the place laughing here .

It's not your fault but since I was young, I've always read 'parabolic' as 'a pair of hairy hangertons'.

One day I may grow up but it will be a sad day .

Now, back to the serious stuff .

Andy.....

[jloveys]

Not so easy to have good info about Stylus design on the net, but this is what I found:

http://audiotools.com/pickup.html

Richard: I found this diagram on the very interesting thread "stylus shapes and forms" on Audiokarma forum:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=256098&highlight=stylus+shape

Micrography:

http://www.micrographia.com/projec/projapps/viny/viny0300.htm

Good info also here:

http://www.turntablebasics.com/cartridges.html

Jean.

[richard]

Jean, thannks.

These are nice sources. The Micrographia page is really good. I stashed it away a year ago and I intend to see if I can get pics as good with my Intel/Mattel microscope if I can manage to get an additional optic kitbashed onto it.

It's been a while since I read the Audiotools material. I could swear that I contributed a couple of clarifications to it a while back. This time, I discovered a few errors and ommissions. For example, I couldn't find Stanton at all! Nor Weathers. And the moving iron description is plain wrong. But let's hand it to the man who wrote the whole thing: it's got a lot of juicy information and it's obviously taken a great deal of work and knowledge to put it together. I think, for example, that his distillation of Micro Acoustics is spot-on (Wait a minute: is this the bit that I wrote? No wonder that I approve of it!)

On this site, http://www.turntablebasics.com/cartridges.html, the second and third picture sets on this page are good for a basic understanding. The site owner has "cribbed" these illustrations. I don't know the source of the second set (which I'd seen earlier from a retailer in Berkeley, California). The third set is by the Walco company during the late 70s-early 80s, to extoll the virtues of their high-performance line of replacement styli. Walco described the second illustration as showing their "Shibata-type" tip. Later, if I'm not mistaken, Walco  said that this same illustration showed their "parabolic" tip. And here, Turntable Basics says that this is the "MicroLine" tip.

Regardles of what's called what, these pictures give a good sense of how the tip fits the groove.

The second set doesn't show the "linear contact" type clearly enough. It's understandable: it's really hard to illustrate these tips. And it's equally hard enough to understand them. In fact, even with factory discussions and pictures, it took me a few years to understand the differences between Stanton's Stereohedron and Stereohedron II profiles. I had to have the illustrations explained to me, and then explained again. And again.

So, you can see how this subject is sonfusing to begin with, confounded so much more by inconsistency of terminology and, let's face it, advertising liberties and hype during the stereo phono age. For my own sanity, I've sorted them into two basic groups as I've described them above. Of course, there are many deviations within my two groups. When I say "parabolics," I'm only talking about two general classifications. In fact, there were a number of different compound cuts to the diamond, as well as the resulting final shapes after polishing. And, as I recall, there was some semi-legal friction between van den Hul and Shibata over their designs.

Again, let me stress two points:

- The parabolics are great-sounding needles. Your satisfaction with them will depend upon the nature of the records that you are playing. In some cases, your musical enjoyment will actually be improved by using a lower-tech stylus. Reproducing frequencies that aren't in the groove to begin with can lead to an actual downgrade of the listening experience by increasing the acuity of noise reproduction. But with a properly-made stereo record, the sound can be awesomely like a studio mastertape. The parabolic is a low-noise tip that's due to lower groove deformation while playing. It was easy for me to do an A-B comparison with a Stanton 681 cartridge body with a conventional .2 x .7 mil elliptical stylus vs. the upgrade Stereohedron tip (1st generation parabolic).

The "second-generation" parabolic delivers higher acuity than the original concept. Its vertical alignment is more critical. Whether you'll actually hear the difference is another matter. In fact, these days, I lean "backward" a bit from the more-perfect .2 mil tracing radius to the .3 mil tracing radius for overall musical satisfaction. It's one of those cases in which "less is more."

- When we look at illustrations of these pristeen new tip shapes, everything is as it was Ordained. However, diamond tips wear down. No matter how much sense these tip shapes suggest when they are new, there's a question lurking about what shapes they wear into in actual service and how quickly they may become dangerous to the vinyl. One thing's evident to me: when a parabolic tip wears too much, it'll trash the groove more thoroughly than any earlier tip design. So, when considering replacement, it's best to err on the side of too much caution and do it sooner than later.

There's so much misinformation about this topic, it's hard to know which way to turn. I've found errors on The Cartridge Database. I guess that the bottom line is that we have to use what knowledge we've got, what knowledge makes sense to us, and then, take the plunge and trust our ears.

Finally, it was around 1986 when the then-current owner of the Walco brand announced to me "Walco owns the Shibata patent. I bought it." Well, duh? Duh? A few months later, he'd sold the brand to Trans Atlantic Electronics, who moved it 3,000 miles back across the USA, folded it into their TAE brand, and then changed the name of the whole enterprise to Empire.

[daiwok]

Richard,

thanks for the link and write, certainly a subject I personally feel that needs clarification and understanding we to understand the industry and terminology.

You might want to take a peek here http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1873.0 it seems from the cartridge literature that the stylus is basically worn after 150 to 200hrs  from my previous experiences stylis are good for at least 800hrs plus - whats your experience on this ? 

[jloveys]

Great input Richard, thanks.
David, I am very intrigued by the Fritz Geyger stylus, used by many cartridge makers (VDH, Ortofon, Benz, ...)
Here is a pic of my Jan Allaerts TIP FG S HIGH TECH diamond,highly polished finish, rounded radius 5 micron.
It is made to last 10 000 hours !

 

So it is a long term investment ! 

Jean.

[jloveys]

DL 103 Conical :

 

[jloveys]

Expert Stylus Paratrace :

   

[daiwok]

Expert Stylus Paratrace :

   

Not sure if that is the paratrace profile  I will see if I can take a photo and we can compare.

However, I believe the more refine the profile and the closer the profile is to the grooves of the record, the longer the stylus will last. So may be JA cart is worth the investment after all 

[richard]

David wrote,

"You might want to take a peek here http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1873.0 it seems from the cartridge literature that the stylus is basically worn after 150 to 200hrs  shocked from my previous experiences stylis are good for at least 800hrs plus - whats your experience on this ? "

I can't provide much of a definitive answer about this as a general rule in hours, either from my knowledge, experience, or even conjecture. There are just so many variables, it's hard to know where to begin. Again, I must address this in terms of concepts.

Your quote from Nagaoka (and I do respect them) makes good sense to me: remember that it's for a certain needle tracking under certain conditions. Certain stylus shapes and sizes, obviously, are better and worse with longevity. Performance has a few different parameters, so it's all a bunch of tradeoffs. Let's compare this to a marvelous description of tire performance as described to me by a rep for a tire distributor: there's traction, handling, ride, and longevity.  Better traction improves handling, may detract from ride, and will definitely reduce longevity. Her description made perfect sense to me. You give more emphasis to one, and you reduce at least one other.

David, it may pay off to study old charts of Shure's needle specifications and note the way that they assigned their tip sizes into distinct groups.

- It would stand to reason that the larger the contact patches are, the more that the friction is spread out. Temperature is a strong factor here. There's overall tip temperature as well as, perhaps, temperature at each distinct point along the contact patch. I feel the need to appeal to Lencophile Sander about this because I remembered his fine application of scientific technique to the issue of antiskating force.

Let's look at one important fact: a diamond (hardest substance known) should not be abraded by soft vinyl! Something's going on here! I'm certain that cartridge/stylus manufacturers figured this out a long time ago. I think that I know what's going on. Obvious hunches: temperature and pressure, no? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and all that. What formed the diamond in the first place rends it asunder, too. As the diamond wears, those teentsy particles that are worn off go someplace. They go into the groove where they remain. As is well known, diamond then wears diamond. In other words, the problem is temperature+pressure+diamond pieces. And dust particles, some of which are abrasive, will increase the friction and thus, raise the temperature.

If you discuss any of this anywhere else, please remember to give me credit. I'm certain that I'm not the first person to figure this out. Obviously, any cartridge or stylus maker with a scientific orientation had to have figured this out by testing. But they weren't talking!

A Stanton engineer once gave me a figure for stylus tip temperature: it was startling. Definitely hot enough to melt the vinyl while passing through it. We also discussed the importance of adequate rounding in order to avoid making needles that would re-cut the records.

- It's obvious that the sharper that the tracing radius is, the more it's going to eat that vinyl.  I noticed audible, fast, record wear of records played with a new .2 x .7 mil stylus. I mean, audible degredation on the second play. The cartridge/stylus was the ubiquitous Shure M91ED. I've been thinking about the phenomenon ever since. Before the development of parabolic styli, the .2 x .7 mil stylus had become the audiophile standard. But the .3 x .7 is the common elliptical today. It's tracing radius is 50% larger and this is no small difference when it's expressed this way. The .3 x .7 was, for some time, the best stylus in the Pickering range, whereas in Stanton, it was the .2 x .7. I recently revisited the .3 x .7, and I was delighted with it. .4 x .7 was a very common elliptical size in Audio Technica for light-tracking, whereas in the Stanton/Pickering range, it was used for higher-force applications, with only one obscure exception in the Pickering line. When a record is being abraded by a needle, I can actually hear the effects as noise. Here, as I mentioned earlier today, the noise difference between a .2 x .7 elliptical and a first-generation parabolic is very convinving.

What are the cartridge makers telling us (we have to figure this out forensically, since it's so many years later)? Right off, we learn that the larger tracing radius allows much more tracking pressure without eating the records outrageously.

Back to your question, I do remember Stanton giving me a figure for their parabolics: the first generation of around 700 hours, and the second generation about 800 hours. But these figures assume, I believe, records that are scrupulously clean. With only one exception, all these needles worked in the range of 1.0-1.5 grams. One disco cartridge came with a Stereohedron tip as an upgrade. In the same pressure range as Shure's .4 x .7 tip applications (around 1.5-3 grams), this Stanton's sound was outrageously good (Cartridge: 680SL, Gene: you know this one.).

So, I can only say that every tip and its application is different. We must trust the cartridge manufacturer to give us some ideas about how long to expect their needles to keep us from abnormal record wear.

My own criteria for keeping the records in as good condition as possible are:
- Always use a dust cover. If we believe that dust covers degrade the sound, it's time to invent better dust covers.
- Clean the records. Get the dust off them.
- The Stanton/Pickering brush helps a lot. It's no substitute for a dust cover.
- We've got to get that diamond dust out of the grooves. Glue cleaning probably offers the best promise here.

If anyone disagrees with me, let's have a go at it in the interest of "science" (maybe "experience" is a better word).