WaynerN
Addicted Member
Cheaper then the ATN150MLX and pretty good (yes they are fussy for alignment).So, better than the 150MLX stylus? Where'd you find it so cheap?
There really are 2 basic kinds of stylus designs, point and line. The point contact are conical and elliptical and their contact surface area is like a dot. The others like microline, fine line, shibata or SAS are line contact. Their contact area is not a dot, but rather a vertical line and its contact width is less then the dot. What this all means is that the line can retrieve much more information from the record grooves because its width is narrower.
And now the other shoe drops......then there is the trade-off. Conical and elliptical are not quite so fussy with cartridge alignment perimeters. Sure they all need to be aligned as best you can to your favorite alignment from Stevenson, Baerwald or Lofgren, but their azimuth and SRA are more critical.
Some have made a point that these more exotic styli can produce more surface noise. Well, ya, but if you have good records and keep them clean, they are going to pick up more detail, and hopefully that detail isn't imperfections to the record surface.
If you don't think you can set up a shibata or any other line contact styli with any degree of accuracy, maybe elliptical shapes are for you. I've been running the microline for many years and there is no way I could live with an elliptical.
I am certainly not a styli expert, and I barely understand the complex geometrical shapes of some of these styli, but properly set up, can be pretty revealing. And I am sorry, but if your records are in shitty condition, they are going to sound like shit. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.