Shure NV55VL stylus - Anyone tried it?

[lovejoy]

Having rediscovered the enjoyment of listening to my Shure M55 cartridge and loving that full bodied sound that my Dynavector doesn't do, I was hoping I might be able to find a JICO SAS stylus to go on it to replace the original that came with it, but the closest I can find is LPGear but they don't want to supply them outside of the US or Canada, so I came across the NV55VL 'Vivid line' stylus which looks to be an upgrade on the elliptical, but obviously not at the same level as the JICO SAS. I've ordered one to give it a try, but wondered whether anyone had any experience of them and if so, what they think of them.

[Wakefield Turntables]

The M55e is one of my favourite carts. I own the neoSAS stylus for the M55e and it's excellent. JICO have a good reputation so I'm sure the NV55L will be a good upgrade.

[struth]

I preferred the shure nos stylus to the sas.

[lovejoy]

Well after a few days of setting one up and running it, I'm VERY pleased. If you like the standard stylus, then this VL version just cleans things up enormously. More space around everything, a wider soundstage and more depth. The overall tonality does not seem to have changed from the original where I've heard that the JICO SAS will brighten things up a bit (although I've not heard one for myself) so if you like the original but would like. a bit more refinement then this is exactly what you want.

The one thing I was suffering from at the start was some pretty bad sibilance on quite a few records and it took a load of tweaking about with bias, VTA and alignment until I finally realised that this new stylus needs more tracking force than the original. I'm hovering around 2.3 grams at the moment compared to the standard which was happy at 1.75, but I've discovered with other new stylus that this can be reduced once it has run in, but I don't expect it'll go much below 2.0g. Even so, it sounds excellent and a nice upgrade on the original so was well worth the experiment.

[brian2957]

Got a link please :)

[lovejoy]

Here you go:

https://www.lpgear.com/product/SHN055VLIMPL.html

The LP Gear website could do with improving their search facility a bit. It takes some finding.

[brian2957]

Thanks Richard :)

[Jimbo]

Having rediscovered the enjoyment of listening to my Shure M55 cartridge and loving that full bodied sound that my Dynavector doesn't do, I was hoping I might be able to find a JICO SAS stylus to go on it to replace the original that came with it, but the closest I can find is LPGear but they don't want to supply them outside of the US or Canada, so I came across the NV55VL 'Vivid line' stylus which looks to be an upgrade on the elliptical, but obviously not at the same level as the JICO SAS. I've ordered one to give it a try, but wondered whether anyone had any experience of them and if so, what they think of them.

I have used the Shure M55e with its original NOS stylus which was very good but the Jico neo SAS stylus turns it into a very different beast. The two cannot really be compared. With the original Boron cantilevered SAS stylus the M55e was closer to a 2M black in its detail retrieval but not quite as dynamic and live sounding.

There is a new SAS stylus available I believe from Jico with a new cantilever made from zirconia and interestingly the tracking force is similar to the Boron cantilevered SAS. When Jico had issues with obtaining Boron they switched to Ruby and sapphire but obviously they have moved on now to Zirconia which is a material I have no knowledge of but is probably very stiff. Whether it sounds as good as the Boron SAS would be difficult to say but I expect it still sounds very good.

[Wakefield Turntables]

I've had mine for some time now and I'm actually listening to it now!! I can't remember if mine was ruby or sapphire? JICO claim that they are both identical in specification. I have no idea if one sounds better than the other.

[Jimbo]

I've had mine for some time now and I'm actually listening to it now!! I can't remember if mine was ruby or sapphire? JICO claim that they are both identical in specification. I have no idea if one sounds better than the other.

I think don't there was much difference between the Ruby or Sapphire Andy. Reading reviews online sometime back there were no real preferences made for either. However the Ruby and Sapphire were not considered as good as the original Boron cantilever.

The new Zirconia cantilever is interesting as the material is similar to Titanium. Never heard of this being used in a cantilever. It is probably very light in mass and very stiff.

[Wakefield Turntables]

It's weird really. I will be buying the Phasemation 500 after all the COVID stuff has calmed down, I'm in cash preservation mode at the moment. So, the M55E is getting a good bashing!

[Jimbo]

Good to get some use out of it?