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In Reply to: RE: Denon Dl-103 phono/SUT posted by flood2 on February 24, 2017 at 17:03:09
As Jonathan Carr has stated, a common elliptical cartridge has a smaller contact patch with the groove than a conical stylus so if all else is equal, tracking force, compliance, nude mounted, etc, then the common elliptical will have a notably shorter service life than a quality conical with nice polish like the Denon 103 series.Please see link below:
Edits: 02/24/17Follow Ups:
Hi
I would be inclined to agree with your example regarding the comparison of the DL103 spherical (which is a jewellery grade diamond) vs "standard" nude bi-radial elliptical (which would generally be of a lower quality in something like an AT120). For an equivalent grade of diamond though, I am not so sure; NOT because I am disagreeing with JCarr, you understand. Rather the models of record wear and stylus wear are very simplified and I am not sure that the true situation has been identified and quantified.
I would certainly be interested in his reasoning in more detail since the wear rate of records and styli is dependent on the model used to represent the record and tip. As it standa now, one finds conflicting information from otherwise ostensibly reputable sources. A simple analysis assumes the record to be a solid (unyielding surface) in contact with a stylus and a model based on friction-related wear is used. However, the vinyl is a resilient material which deforms at temperature (due to the high pressure) and Ortofon state in their material (jump to note 4 in the link) that elliptical styli have an enlarged contact area in the groove vs spherical and do not increase record wear.
JICO on the other hand produce a comparison chart of the different tips and show an enlarged contact area for a 0.7mil spherical over a bi-radial elliptical which is in total contradiction of Ortofon's statements.
Is one of them "incorrect"?
I think it comes down to the model used and the definition of stylus wear and how it is determined.
The only way to determine wear during use is with regular distortion measurements of a chosen spot high frequency tone over the lifetime of the stylus. The average user does not have this capability in all likelihood due to the dearth of test discs. So the only subjective means for the average user is the perceived level of distortion which will be most noticeable on inner grooves. The spherical stylus has inherently higher distortion to begin with so to say that the spherical stylus wears "faster" is not to say that it has physically worn down MORE than an elliptical, but that the level of distortion becomes more offensive sooner compared to the elliptical.
Either way, it comes down to the end-user's tolerance for distortion and discretion on balancing the risk of groove damage due to tip wear and running costs.
FWIW, for me, I use the appearance of sibiliance or "grittiness" on the inner grooves as an indication. Image smear is also a giveaway since the loss of high frequency tracing ability will result in a deterioration of the soundstage over a side. I have determined the earliest point at which this occurs. For a low grade tip like a Stanton D680 or D6800MkIII, I start to hear degradation fairly early so I would put 350 hours to 400 hours at the maximum. For Denon DL301/II, I would be happy to take it up to 500 hours to 600 hours. A MicroLine may be rated to 1000 hours, but I will stop short at 700 to 800 hours for safety. However, that's just me!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Conflicting explanations indicate to me that, as you point out, the models tend to be simplistic and the physics complex.
Which leads to the subjective. And though I have a broad preference for older jazz and race records I have many more modern recordings in my collection and I can comfortably say that, subjectively IMHO, very few show any overt indications of groove damage, and I can only guess that many were played by their previous owners with conical styli tracking at 6 or so grams in plastic tonearms.
And it may be that since I have cartridges with both Namiki and Ogura line contact styli they ride in a different portion of the groove. But I have conical and elliptical styli as well and I don't really notice distortion with those either. Then again, I'm getting older.
I am no fan of Michael Fremer, but his recent review of the Ortofon SPU #1 and #2 (Do the Ortofon folks know what this means in English?) really hit the nail on the head for me in that he articulated exactly what conical styli leave out of the presentation and how that changes the experience and can make one hyper focused on the elements that are left, with very pleasing results. There is an elemental connection when listening to conical styli IMHO in that much of the cerebral qualities of the music are leached out.
I'm not sure where that leaves us but I imagine that different people crave different presentations and then there is sonic compatibility with the rest of the system as well. So conical styli seem a viable alternative to me at least.
I also appreciate your, very well judged, estimates of stylus life. I find that there is just too much optimism in many peoples estimates. Cartridges are consumables like toilet paper and car tires. The sooner that sinks in the better the understanding of stylus life will be, IMHO.
Thank you for sharing your reasoned thoughts.
Thank you for your kind words :)
You raise a couple of very interesting points regarding styli types and groove wear.
"I am no fan of Michael Fremer, but his recent review of the Ortofon SPU #1 and #2 (Do the Ortofon folks know what this means in English?)... "
Haha, yes! Unfortunate choice of names..
I know I am on record (unfortunate pun) for often criticising the spherical stylus, but I will acknowledge that it certainly has its uses and I myself do employ them in appropriate situations - for example RCA Dynagroove records.
Styli are tools. You use the best one for the job you have. Sometimes, it isn't always appropriate to use your most expensive tool for certain jobs!
I also have oversized spherical 1 mil styli for vintage Microgroove. However for transcriptions I employ an Ortofon Arkiv (0.5x 1mil) tip which gives me the best of both worlds - I use these alternatives when I don't want to risk my line contact styli (especially MicroLine) if I am playing the records for the first time or haven't cleaned them for transcription.
Regarding the enjoyable musical performance from spherical tips. I have certainly found myself also enjoying the sound and not being aware of the theoretical "issues". My personal opinion is that this is likely due to the immunity of the tip to the other distortions introduced by elliptical/LC due to SRA mismatch and alignment errors. I measure the thickness of each and every record and shim them to within 0.01mm to a reference arm height. I was driven to do this with my longer contact styli and found that the sonic gains were by no means subtle and eliminated issues of sibilance and image smear. From reading general comments on this forum, including from John who I would normally regard to be every bit as fussy I am if not more so(!), it would appear that few people do this even with their reference cartridges sporting a line contact design. Additionally, the means to accurately adjust arm height is not available to many people and many simply follow the perceived wisdom of an arbitrary "slightly tail down". In my experience this simply magnifies other sources of distortion and the advantages of the advanced tip design are lost through a (potentially) tremendous increase in FM distortion due to SRA mismatch.
For all its limitations, the spherical tip frees them/us from this issue and simply replays the music. Many covers from old jazz recordings from the 50s that I have, proclaim a bandwidth of 15kHz. For such recordings on a 12" LP, the bandwidth reduction on the inner grooves due to the oversized tip will never be encountered. In many cases, the inner groove is well short of the minimum anyway so the increase in inner groove distortion is also rendered moot.
I take your point that stylus related wear is probably quite rare in terms of being blatantly obvious throughout the whole record.
Evidence of wear is very dependent on the stylus being used. A very slight shift in contact point due to tip azimuth differences or bearing radius will reveal or conceal wear.
I have acquired many records cheaply some of which were from US radio stations and some evidently from private collections. However, more than a few have betrayed evidence of record wear not necessarily through stylus wear, but through tracking alignment error as the distortions generally appear right where you might expect near the middle of the record to the end. I'm not sure if you are familiar with Dave Digs Disney (I have a mono copy), but on Heigh-Ho during the drum solo when the cymbals and snare transients come through you can hear that they have become "crunches" and you can hear the sound field smear widely from a clean centre mono image with spurious noises in the channels at the same time. I confirmed these distortions on my ELP laser turntable so it is genuine wear rather than errors in my playback system!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
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