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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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In Reply to: RE: For curiosity sake how long would you get with a ruby stylus compared to diamond posted by Fred J on September 29, 2010 at 17:50:53:
The majority of vinyl addicts on this forum seem to prefer mint LP discs and fine line contact diamond tips. Yes, these special elliptical, micro ridge and fine line, simulated record cutter profiles can last a long time, if kept impeccably clean. That means the stylus and discs must be very, very clean to achieve anything over 1000 hours, reliably.
But, for the masses of record collectors, many of whom do not visit this forum, we need our conicals, normal ellipticals, and sapphire tips for our not so great condition musical treasures. I have diamond conicals with thousands and I mean many thousands of hours logged; 50 year old carts still going very strong. These still show no wear under the scope. I had an Ortofon SPU-TE, with a .3 x.7 elliptical that I used daily for over 15 years, easily used over 10,000 hours ! How can this be, you ask ?
Quality of diamond and clean discs easily yield many more hours than a very processed fine line type tip will allow. Those simple ellipticals only have their fronts and backs ground or polished, while a Geiger or VandenHul et al type has complex cuts, chisels, grinding and polishing needed. Too much processing can create a fragile tip. Bear to witness the early, or even later Shure Micro Ridge types and you know what I mean. These can become chisels rather quickly if used with dirty "contaminated" discs. Theoretically, these fine line types are the ultimate for LP playback. In practice, most of this forum's readers know that disc and stylus cleanliness is needed to log a big number of hours. But, what about the wider groove 45s and microgroove mono Lps of yesteryear ? How is it that a lowly .7 mil conical/spherical, used for almost 50 years, can still be worthy ? With all the technical blurbs about the conical's limited contact points and supposedly higher pressures on the grooves, we might probably believe they are only for the dj crowds. Well, the truth is, in practice, conicals can last a long, long time; with many thousands of hours easily achieved by many, many vinyl addicts. This is not arguable, my friends. Talk to some of the exhibitors at any record convention. Research the old jukebox trade, as well, and you might be amazed to know that Seeburg specified sapphire tips for their Pickering equipped jukes.
Why sapphire, or ruby red sapphires ? I wanted to know, myself, many moons ago. My record player turntable restoring buddy swore that sapphires sounded better, especially on the usual 78s and scratchy discs. In disbelief, I researched and even retipped our fave Pickering 78 styli, with sapphire tips, to hear it for myself. When it comes to average condition discs and scratchy discs of the VG- to fair or poor variety, the sapphire easily wins; hands down ! With mint to VG+ discs, I still prefer a clean diamond. But, the practicality of having a ruby or sapphire equipped stylus assembly on hand, for those scratchy treasures, is very worthy.
My research indeed verified that the diamond has exceptional hardness and lowest wear, without a doubt. But, concerning heat dissipation and friction, or stiction; that ability of a diamond to become and stay hot, while playing average condition discs, those scratchy discs might actually cause the "sticky" diamond to skip, while the cooler running ruby or sapphire tips seem to glide through and stay in the scratchy grooves. I have some terribly scratchy blues 78s that sound way noisy with a 3 mil diamond, yet can sometimes sound surprisingly acceptable with a 3 mil sapphire stylus. This empirical lesson proof was also repeated with some of my very special but scratchy 45s using 1 mil and .7 mil tips. The 78 and 45 RPM jukebox manufacturers knew this. That is why they specified sapphire tips for the heaviest usage machines and discs. We should all be aware of this. But, at the same time, we should all be aware that logging 400 hours on a sapphire or ruby tip is no easy feat. However, even 200 hours of playing 78s or 45s is quite a large number of discs. Happy Listening !
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Follow Ups
- Don't Diss a ruby stylus, essentially a sapphire; they run cooler than a diamonds, thus less stiction... - Interstage Tranny 18:08:25 09/30/10 (2)
- Great post ! (NT) - Fred J 01:21:25 10/01/10 (1)
- Sapphire Tips' 200 Hours=12,000 Minutes of playing time=4000 Singles ! - Interstage Tranny 08:55:58 10/02/10 (0)
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