Elyptical v Conical Styli

[Tea24]

Can some one enlighten me on the advantages/ disadvantages of each, please?

[hifi_dave]

Elliptical and similar shaped styli fit into the twiddly bits and therefore, extract more info than conical styli.

Conical styli are easier to set up.

[AlexM]

Dave,

That was concise!. Non-conical styli are supposed to track high-level and high frequency signals better than a conical stylus, have lower surface noise and lower record wear.

.. Allegedly...

As Dave says, they are also more critical of alignment and VTA setup.

Regards,
Alex

[WAD62]

Elliptical and similar shaped styli fit into the twiddly bits and therefore, extract more info than conical styli.

Conical styli are easier to set up.

I have a denon DL110 with which the advertising blurb claims...

The Denon DL-110 DL 110 DL110 phono cartridge uses a special elliptical stylus with a rectangular cross section of 0.1 x 0.2 mm. It reaches deep into the record groove to extract detail while bypassing groove wall beaten and shorn by age, misuse and misalignment. You'll probably be surprised by how quiet your LPs sound.

...so does that put is somewhere between an eliptical and a conical, i.e. a very small eliptical :scratch:

[griffo104]

Dave,

That was concise!. Non-conical styli are supposed to track high-level and high frequency signals better than a conical stylus, have lower surface noise and lower record wear.


which is why some people moan about Lyras and other modern cart designs as sounding bright when all they are doing is extracting more of the signal. Most modern stereo records have 'V' shaped grooves so it makes more sense to have a styli shaped to read the groove more accurately. there was an interview in HIFI+ several years ago with VdH explaining all about this and he was one of the main guys dehind these type of styli, in particular the gyger stylues which he designed and built with the the original guy behing the Benz Micro carts.

The only conical styli I have owned was on a DL103 and it lasted about a week before finding the bin. they may be easier to set up but also introduce more distortion as they head towards the inner grooves.

Some people enjoy the 'older' sound of these carts but not me - give me a good well designed modern cart any day of the week.

I find elliptical carts produce a far quieter listening experience with reagrds to distortion although as mentioned alignment and VTA is much more important in setup.

[Clive]

Line contact and Paratrace too......these are really sensitive to setup, azimuth included.

[colinB]

Elliptical are not always quieter. Owned a gyger elliptical and a nude elliptical and both sensitive to surface noise, enough to spoil my listening experience.

[Slippershod]

I've found the same with basic elliptical stylii - there are some tracks I've encountered which they play so noisily it's like a different record.

seems that spherical ones can be quite kind in this respect ... ?

[Dominic Harper]

Some info to help explain the situation.
A cutter head profile is very different to a conical tip. The record groove narrows along the straighter parts, which in turn lifts the tip within the groove, plus a conical tip cannot negotiate the tighter corners as well as an elliptical or line contact type can.
This does not imply however that conical tips will sound bad, I have re-tipped with conicals and have heard no distortion.
ellipticals and other elaborate profiles try to mimic the cutter profile. One of the closest is the Fritz Gyger 'S'.
But these too have limitations. The trailing edge of the stylus can make contact with the groove wall on complex passages.
As for surface noise with special tips, this can often be remedied be lowering the arm slightly. If noise is prominent, it is usually because stylus rake angle is not optimised.
Special profiles will extract far more info from the disc.
The industry standard when cutting is 15 degrees SRA. Most cartridges have their tips set at 20 to 25 degree. Which does not help the situation.

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/hifimaster/stylus%20info/cutter.jpg

[Marco]

Some people enjoy the 'older' sound of these carts but not me - give me a good well designed modern cart any day of the week.


Lol, some day, dude, you'll have to pay me a visit and experience *exactly* why I prefer vintage cartridges with conical tips. Clue: it has absolutely NOTHING to do with enjoying 'an old sound'! :eyebrows:

Bring your "well designed modern cartridge" with you for a reference, and trust me, I will open your eyes (and ears)..... ;)

Marco.

[Stratmangler]

Lol, some day, dude, you'll have to pay me a visit and experience *exactly* why I prefer vintage cartridges with conical tips. Clue: it has absolutely NOTHING to do with enjoying 'an old sound'! :eyebrows:

Bring your "well designed modern cartridge" with you for a reference, and trust me, I will open your eyes (and ears)..... ;)

Marco.

Having heard Marco's setup, I'd just like to add that it doesn't do "syrupy", to quote another member here, or "warm & cuddly" either :eyebrows:

[griffo104]

Lol, some day, dude, you'll have to pay me a visit and experience *exactly* why I prefer vintage cartridges with conical tips. Clue: it has absolutely NOTHING to do with enjoying 'an old sound'! :eyebrows:

Bring your "well designed modern cartridge" with you for a reference, and trust me, I will open your eyes (and ears)..... ;)

Marco.

Will defo have to get together at some point and go through this stuff together, I can see your point on a lot of things but not cartridge design :lol:

Ah well you need something to disagree on some times.

Mr Carr of Lyra fame used to post on PFM many years ago and it was exceptionally interesting to read his views and what he was thinking of. A bit sad that he stopped posting on their.

I have 3 carts in rotation at the momoent, the Lyra, Goldring Elite and the Denon DL301ii. All have their strenghts and weaknesses and all seem to suit my many different moods - the Denon is being used at the momment which can sound sublime on intimate music but never gets me going when swapping to something more full on such as Squarepusher.

I can fully understand why the Japanese need more than one arm on their decks :)

[Marco]

Cheers, Chris. We'll be getting Alex and you around again soon, if you're free, to complete 'unfinished business'... ;)

Marco.

[griffo104]

Having heard Marco's setup, I'd just like to add that it doesn't do "syrupy", to quote another member here, or "warm & cuddly" either :eyebrows:

Not sure I mean those terms when I talk about 'older' sounding systems.

I was brought up in the digital age so I always tend to err on the side of carts which bring some of the CD strengths rather than the older style which certainly don't. I've always found the Lyra more lithe and faster than the Denon, which is an older design, but I still enjoy both at certain times - mood permitting of course.

I have heard a few too many 'older' based systems though which tend to concentrate in mid-band region rather than the full frequency of the sound.

I'm sure having read a lot of what Marco favours his system certainly wouldn't sound like that.

[Stratmangler]

Cheers, Chris. We'll be getting Alex and you around again soon, if you're free, to complete 'unfinished business'... ;)

Marco.

Looking forward to it :)

[Dominic Harper]

Marco, you should borrow my G800 with nickel cantilever for the show down!

[Marco]

Hi Dominic,

I'd love to :cool:

Marco.

[WOStantonCS100]

I've had a revelation of sorts recently which has led me to believe it depends on the record.

I have a 12" single of Bjork All Is Full of Love. It is cut so hot that my nude contact line stylus simple jumps out of the groove. I would have to increase VTF to a dangerous degree (broken cantilever) to keep that stylus in the groove. The conical stylus I have does a much better job with reasonable VTF applied. There may be a little less detail; but, it's certainly playable. There are also a couple other 2 LP sets with "wide grooves" where the contact line/shibata's just don't work.

I think I saw somewhere a chart with stylus recommendations for different records (ie. RCA Victor Orthophonic, etc. etc.) according to how they were originally cut/pressed.

[Dominic Harper]

You have something very wrong there if the stylus jumps out of the groove. Could possibly be detritus in the groove that the conical tip is missing.
A cartridges performance will greatly deteriorate if tracking force is not optimal.
By this I do not mean within manufacturer specs. These should really be classed as guidelines and tracking force set optimally by ear.

[WOStantonCS100]

"Jumps out of the groove" was more a figure of speech. I should have said "clearly audible mistracking" even at a gram over recommended tracking force. As the ruby cantilever/nude contact line stylus combo wasn't cheap, I can't bring myself to risk it for the sake of the few extremely hot cut records in my collection when the spherical cruises right through and sounds good.

Question. What is your take on using different profile styli for different records? And, is the reasoning behind using a wider profile stylus for 78 rpm's sound or myth?

[Dominic Harper]

Hi Biff. Tracking at 1g over the recommended force is going to cause problems. This will overload the suspension and the cartridge will not track correctly.
78's do indeed need a dedicated stylus profile as they were mono recordings and the cutting stylus profile will differ to stereo cutters. A proper mono cartridge is also prefered as the groove on mono recordings is left/right only with no vertical modulations as with stereo cuts.
Dom

[WOStantonCS100]

Hey Dom,

I'm pretty confused now, so forgive me. But, you said the manufacturer's specs should be classified as guidelines and tracking force should be set optimally by ear and then you said going 1 gram over will overload the suspension. So, are we talking about setting by ear by only .25 or .5 grams? Isn't there usually an acceptable recommended range?

Sorry for all the questions; but, I'm always up for an education. So, one more, if I may... Could the mistracking I'm experiencing for hot records not necessarily be detritus material but compliance that is too low to properly track the given record?

[Dominic Harper]

Sorry for the confusion. Look upon a cartridge suspension much the same way as a cars. If you overload a car to the extreme the suspension simply cannot cope. If it were possible to strip a car of a lot of its weight, the suspension would not be able to do its job. When I referred to manufacturers specs as guidelines, they in nearly all cases give a minimum, maximum and recommended tracking force. I am not suggesting you should track outside the range they specify, but do not take it for granted the recommended tracking force is perfect. Adjust within the range by ear.

Tracking way too high will not allow the suspension to do its job.
Compliance is kind of the issue here but not entirely.

[freefallrob]

Only a cheap cartridge, but on a RB301 with a direct drive turntable the little Goldring ELAN spherical does ALOT right, in fact a enjoy it more than the Elektra most times.

Something about spherical/conical stylus....

Regarding Tracking force, I think the manufacturers' are generally right in my experience, they give the optimum value to give best tracking with the most linear generator performance.